Luke Johnson reaches out to hospitality businesses seeking investment

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Hospitality entrepreneur Luke Johnson has put a call out on Twitter urging operators seeking investment to contact him.

In a Tweet posted yesterday, Johnson said: “Operators of established, high quality U.K. hospitality businesses seeking added value equity capital should DM me. 

“Willing to invest £500k to £5m and move quickly if terms are realistic.”

Johnson, who is chairman of private equity firm Risk Capital Partners, currently backs operators including Gail’s Bakery, All Star Lanes, and Lussmanns Sustainable Fish & Grill.

The entrepreneur has been very vocal in his warnings of the tough economic times that will be faced by the UK as a result of the Coronavirus crisis.

Speaking on Sky News earlier this month, Johnson said the UK could face a “Great Depression” and would have to decide if containment measures were worth the “collateral damage” of falling living standards and damage to mental health.

"The longer this shutdown continues, the more industry will generally shut down and become insolvent,” he told the broadcaster.

"I think there is a terrible trade-off the country will have to make at some point in the very near future about the damage to our whole standard of living and whether we are willing to accept the suicides and all the collateral damage of the shutdown, as opposed to protecting the NHS so it can keep people with the virus alive.

"I think we could well be facing a downturn that isn't just an average recession but is closer to something like the Great Depression from the 1930s.”