Latest news with #RichardCaring
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Richard Caring in advanced talks to sell part of UK hospitality empire
Businessman Richard Caring is in advanced discussions to sell a substantial part of his hospitality business in the UK to the International Holding Company (IHC), overseen by its chairman Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al-Nahyan, as reported by the Financial Times. The sale encompasses the Ivy restaurants chain and Annabel's, an exclusive London private members club. The potential deal, which has been under consideration for some time and has recently gained momentum, could exceed £1bn ($1.32bn). The negotiations, which could lead to a partial exit for Caring, are primarily focused on selling a stake in Troia, the entity behind the Ivy Collection, which operates 40 restaurants across the UK and Ireland. The deal could provide Caring with funding to expand his hospitality brands into new markets. However, the deal's specifics are still being finalised, with discussions around the price and assets involved still variable. The scope of the potential transaction has broadened and may now include Caring's other assets, such as his Mayfair private members' clubs George and Harry's Bar —held under Mark Birley Holdings, which is co-owned by Qatar's former prime minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani. Caring's portfolio also includes casual dining chain Bill's and Caprice Holdings, which owns upscale dining establishments Bacchanalia, Sexy Fish and Scott's. Despite ongoing talks, sources emphasise that there is no certainty that a deal will be reached between IHC and Caring. Caring manages his business through a network of investment vehicles owned by Jersey and British Virgin Islands-based holding companies. Corporate filings indicate that Troia, Caprice and Mark Birley Holdings have collectively guaranteed bank loans. The conglomerate IHC already has a diverse portfolio in the hospitality sector. Its listed subsidiary Alpha Dhabi Holdings holds a controlling interest in the National Corporation for Tourism and Hotels, which owns luxury hotels in Abu Dhabi, the Maldives and the Seychelles. Additionally, via a joint venture with Monterock International, Alpha Dhabi has stakes in hospitality brands such as the Greek luxury resorts chain Nammos. In September 2024, Caring was known to be in talks to sell the Ivy Collection restaurant group to a London-based investment company, Si Advisors. "Richard Caring in advanced talks to sell part of UK hospitality empire" was originally created and published by Verdict Food Service, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site.
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Richard Caring in talks to sell stake in The Ivy to Abu Dhabi's ‘spy sheikh'
Richard Caring is in talks to sell a stake in his Ivy restaurant empire to an Abu Dhabi royal nicknamed the 'spy sheikh'. Mr Caring, the hospitality tycoon known as the 'King of Mayfair', is in advanced negotiations with Sheik Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan to sell a significant share in his hospitality company Troia for around £1bn, the Financial Times reported. The company owns The Ivy restaurant in central London and its offshoots across the country. Negotiations are said to be fluid and other clubs and restaurants owned by Mr Caring could also be thrown into the deal. Mr Caring also owns Sexy Fish, an Asian restaurant and bar in Mayfair, J Sheekey, a fish restaurant near Leicester Square and Annabel's, the renown private members club, among others. A source close to the talks said a deal was not imminent. Mr Caring has been seeking to sell a stake in The Ivy for almost a year and was last autumn said to be close to a deal with London-based firm Si Advisers, a little known investment firm. A deal with Sheik Tahnoun's International Holding Company (IHC) would represent a significantly more high-profile transaction. IHC is currently the most valuable firm listed on Abu Dhabi's stock exchange, with investments in industries ranging from property to fisheries. Sheik Tahnoun is the son of the United Arab Emirates founder Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan and a leading figure in Abu Dhabi's royal family. He is also the UAE's intelligence chief, a position that has earned him the nickname the 'spy sheikh'. The Abu Dhabi royal was hosted by Donald Trump at the White House in March this year and his Instagram accounts shows recent meetings with Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos. The sheikh's many roles also including heading the UAE's state-owned AI investment fund and G42, the Emirati rival to ChatGPT-maker OpenAI. Mr Caring, who started out in the fashion industry as a supplier to shops including Next and Marks & Spencer, bought the original Ivy restaurant in 2005. The site, which opened in 1917 in Covent Garden, is one of the capital's most famous restaurants, known for its popularity with actors. Mr Caring took the brand and expanded it into a restaurant chain in 2014. Today, there are more than 40 Ivy cafes, brasseries and restaurants across the UK and Ireland. Documents sent out to potential investors suggest Mr Caring is likely to stay with the business following any sale. A presentation seen by The Telegraph last year stated: 'Richard Caring is open to retaining a minority stake and also remaining a part of future operations as required.' A spokesman for Mr Caring declined to comment. IHC was contacted for comment. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Telegraph
16-05-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
Richard Caring in talks to sell stake in The Ivy to Abu Dhabi's ‘spy sheikh'
Richard Caring is in talks to sell a stake in his Ivy restaurant empire to an Abu Dhabi royal nicknamed the 'spy sheikh'. Mr Caring, the hospitality tycoon known as the 'King of Mayfair', is in advanced negotiations with Sheik Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan to sell a significant share in his hospitality company Troia for around £1bn, the Financial Times reported. The company owns The Ivy restaurant in central London and its offshoots across the country. Negotiations are said to be fluid and other clubs and restaurants owned by Mr Caring could also be thrown into the deal. Mr Caring also owns Sexy Fish, an Asian restaurant and bar in Mayfair, J Sheekey, a fish restaurant near Leicester Square and Annabel's, the renown private members club, among others. A source close to the talks said a deal was not imminent. Mr Caring has been seeking to sell a stake in The Ivy for almost a year and was last autumn said to be close to a deal with London-based firm Si Advisers, a little known investment firm. A deal with Sheik Tahnoun's International Holding Company (IHC) would represent a significantly more high-profile transaction. IHC is currently the most valuable firm listed on Abu Dhabi's stock exchange, with investments in industries ranging from property to fisheries. Sheik Tahnoun is the son of the United Arab Emirates founder Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan and a leading figure in Abu Dhabi's royal family. He is also the UAE's intelligence chief, a position that has earned him the nickname the 'spy sheikh'. The Abu Dhabi royal was hosted by Donald Trump at the White House in March this year and his Instagram accounts shows recent meetings with Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos. The sheikh's many roles also including heading the UAE's state-owned AI investment fund and G42, the Emirati rival to ChatGPT-maker OpenAI. Mr Caring, who started out in the fashion industry as a supplier to shops including Next and Marks & Spencer, bought the original Ivy restaurant in 2005. The site, which opened in 1917 in Covent Garden, is one of the capital's most famous restaurants, known for its popularity with actors. Mr Caring took the brand and expanded it into a restaurant chain in 2014. Today, there are more than 40 Ivy cafes, brasseries and restaurants across the UK and Ireland. Documents sent out to potential investors suggest Mr Caring is likely to stay with the business following any sale. A presentation seen by The Telegraph last year stated: 'Richard Caring is open to retaining a minority stake and also remaining a part of future operations as required.'
The Guardian
23-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Gilgamesh, London: ‘It's a weird trip': restaurant review
Gilgamesh, 4a Upper St Martin's Lane, London WC2H 9NY. Small plates £7-£19, large plates £9-£42, desserts £9, wines from £38 A Monday lunchtime, and my phone pings. There's a text. 'Gilgamesh London. It's our Birthday! ONE milestone gift to you,' it says, with a dizzyingly random use of capital letters. '50% OFF A la Carte Menu. Online bookings.' Which is all very nice. Except I'm already booked to go to Gilgamesh. The next day I'm served up a trio of their ads across this paper's homepage online, offering '3 courses for £20'. It could be described as pathologically needy were that not an insult to needy people. Gilgamesh is the rebirth of a bonkers restaurant which opened in 2006 inside The Stables at London's Camden Market at a cost well north of £12m. It could seat 570 people and had a hilariously garish interior of sculptures and gold-effect reliefs telling the story of the Babylonian King Gilgamesh. As both god and man, he smote people, built mighty walls and generally made the weather across what is now the Middle East. Therefore, the food was pan-Asian. Well, of course it was: creaky stabs at sushi, dim sum, Thai curries and the rest. It was eventually taken over by Richard Caring of the Ivy group, before closing in 2018. A year ago it reopened on a site at the top of St Martin's Lane which used to be Marcus Wareing's Tredwells. So why my interest? I'm a completist, my time on this column is coming to an end and I simply needed to know: would Gilgamesh Mk II make any more sense than the original? As ever, it depends on your terms of reference. Despite the desperate come-hither ads and texts, they appear to be doing fine. On a midweek night, the place is rammed. They have a private party upstairs, so there's no room in the cloakroom for my bag 'because we have, like, 50 backpacks there already.' You can hear that crowd honking and hooting at each other at maximum volume over the mezzanine balcony into the vault at the front of the restaurant, where high mounted outdoor heaters have been fitted to fend off a chill. We are seated beneath their glow, before being moved so that we don't slowly grill. We now have a lovely view of the same ludicrous gold-effect interior which, we are told, is the original from Camden. Given the cracks, ragged joins and bubbled marquetry on the tables that's believable. There's plastic foliage including a bay tree, which looks as knackered as I'm already feeling, and a thumping bass line that makes the very air tremble. But look, we're here for what the website calls 'a culinary journey inspired by the ancient epic of Gilgamesh, where East meets West'. Apparently 'every sip and bite takes you further into the epic tale woven within our restaurant – a sensory experience that transcends time and cultural boundaries.' Which is nice. That immense journey starts with the sort of prawn crackers delivered in a white plastic bag with a cheap Chinese takeaway. They are accompanied by a salsa made with the flesh of pale pink tomatoes which taste of almost nothing. The best dish of the night is the £16 popcorn shrimp served in a stainless-steel pot the shape of a large martini glass. They are hot and crisp, though when we ask where the advertised spicy chipotle mayo is, we're told airily that it's been mixed in. From the sushi list we are mistakenly brought a Gilgamesh dragon roll. It's coated in a thin, slimy layer of wagyu beef, which has the texture of something you might use to salve a burn. When they deliver the actual dragon roll we asked for, made with barbecued eel and avocado, it's solid enough. Meanwhile, a crispy duck and watermelon salad, with a handful of cashews expertly removed from their bag and chucked on to the plate, is a disaster. The duck and melon are both excruciatingly sugary. The combination can work, but only if there's a sharply dressed leaf salad as counterbalance. Otherwise, it's just a weird trip to the sweetie shop. There is then a long wait for the main courses, but they were always bound to turn up, weren't they? The least offensive for simply being dull is the grilled, cotton-wool thump of the lemongrass chicken, which tastes of very little including either lemongrass or chicken. Then there's the beef rendang, which should be cooked long and slow until the reduced gravy has a profound warmth, depth and toastiness to it. This one is a sloppy blight upon the dish's very name. It's astringent and harsh, as if it were pressure-cooked for 30 minutes and left at that. The roti are greasy and flaccid as, by now, am I. We've also ordered cauliflower and asparagus fried rice. It smells like it's been made with the leftover cauliflower that comes alongside a cheap pub Sunday roast; the stuff overcooked yesterday, so that it can be eaten today without recourse to teeth. Of course, asparagus is grossly out of season but if it's in the dish description, it should be there. It isn't. It's just 50% massacred cauliflower. I point this out to our brilliant waiter, who is dealing with the noise and the chaos and a kitchen which doesn't always send the right order, with grace and dignity. He offers to replace it and though we decline, brings it anyway, but by this point we're done. We've tried to take the edge off with a £38 bottle of Spanish Sauvignon Blanc headache wine, the cheapest on the list. It hasn't done the job. Perhaps we should have ordered the Don Julio 1942 tequila at £950 (available online for £146). This evening my cultural boundaries have not so much been transcended as wildly violated. I have indeed had a sensory experience, just not quite the one they intended. Of course, I've made a category error here, just as I did 18 years ago. I came to a restaurant thinking the food mattered. But apparently it doesn't, not even when the bill comes to £175 (I'm told the discount in the text applies only between certain hours). A lot of restaurants are stage sets, Gilgamesh it seems more than most. It's a space in which to play at having a certain kind of watermelon martini-fuelled night, which is not my thing. We retreat to Anita, the ice-cream parlour next door, for tubs of mixed berry pavlova and chocolate sorbet, which are my thing. It doesn't transcend any cultural boundaries. It isn't epic. But it really does make things a little better. Gordon Ramsay's restaurant group is taking over the site of what was Le Gavroche, which was closed in early 2024 after 56 years by Michel Roux, son of the late co-founder Albert Roux. According to industry magazine Ramsay's company has successfully applied to take over the premises licence, with the supervisor named as Silvano Giraldin, the legendary maître d' who ran front-of-house at Le Gavroche for 30 years. The new restaurant will be a platform for Matt Abé, who has been chef-patron at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay on Royal Hospital Road in London's Chelsea since 2020. Ramsay was a junior member of the brigade at Le Gavroche under Albert Roux in the late 80s. Ayesha Kalaji, chef-patron of the highly regarded Queen of Cups in Glastonbury, is bringing a menu of her key dishes to the Intercontinental London Park Lane for Iftar, the meal with which Muslims break their fast during Ramadan. The half Welsh-half Jordanian Kalaji, who trained at Leith's School of Food and Wine, has put together an a la carte menu that includes braised pressed hogget with Persian lime and lavender, Queen of Cups laverbread falafel, and a rice pudding flavoured with rose water and saffron. It will be available for a month from 29 February. Book here. Bath BID, the business improvement group for the city, has announced the first ever Bath Restaurant Week, which will run from 3 to 11 May. Hospitality businesses in the city will be encouraged to run special menus and dishes spotlighting their offering, which will be promoted by Bath BID. To launch the event, and to raise funds for the charity Hospitality Action, they are staging a Waiters Race on Monday 7 April. Follow them on Instagram here for more information. Email Jay at or follow him on Instagram @jayrayner1
