Wheel Topco has announced that due to ‘market conditions’ it no longer intends to make an offer for the high street restaurant group, which owns brands including Wagamama and Brunning & Price.
TRG revealed last month that an approach for the business had been made by Wheel Topco. However, no bid was formally submitted.
It came after a deal was struck earlier in October for private equity house Apollo Funds to purchase TRG in a deal that valued each of the company’s shares at 65p.
The acquisition gave an enterprise value of £701m for the business and a multiple of around nine times TRG’s adjusted EBITDA for the 12 months ended 2 July 2023.
The deal had been described by some investors as undervaluing TRG, in one case by up to £100m, leading to speculation that more bids might be tabled for the group.
Under the terms of Apollo’s 65p-a-share offer, a rival bid would need to be at least 10% richer for irrevocable shareholder undertakings to lapse.
TRG, which sold its leisure division to the Big Table Group back in September, reported strong like-for-like sales growth in the first half of the year (H1), driven in part by the recovery of its concessions business.
Total revenue increased 10% to £467.4m in the 26 weeks to 2 July 2023, up from £423.4m in the same period last year.
TRG said its trading performance supports a ‘moderate increase’ in management’s adjusted EBITDA expectations for the 2023 financial year.
