According to The Times, Electra Private Equity is also aiming to sell off its other assets – which include Hotter Shoes and Sentinel - before the end of 2021, and return the proceeds to shareholders.
The firm purchased TGI’s for £100m in 2014, and analysts have said the business could now be worth up to £275m, with other private equity firms and trade rivals likely to show interest.
In recent months TGI’s has introduced delivery and click and collect across some of its 85 restaurants, as well as a new food offer in accordance to its rebranding as ‘Friday’s’ last year.
It was also reported in November that the group was planning to launch a cocktail-led bar and restaurant brand called 63rd+1st that it intends to roll out across the UK.
The first site, in Cobham, was set to open early this month, but this is now on hold as a result of national lockdown in England.
For the financial year 2019, TGI Fridays UK business – which runs all of its sites on a franchise model – generated pre tax profits of £25.6m, and revenues of £214.8m.
Electra is one of London’s oldest listed private equity firms having floated its shares in 1976, but its stock market worth has dwindled as its portfolio assets have been sold. The shares, which trade at a substantial discount to the net value of its assets, value the business at just over £100 million.