Tasty Pasta King Deal for NBGI Private Equity

NBGI Private Equity Ltd (“NBGI PE”) has backed a £13m management buy in of Pasta King (UK) Ltd (“Pasta King”), which provides pasta meals to schools and other sectors. The business has been acquired from its incumbent management and Matrix Private Equity Partners.

Pasta King, which is based in Newton Abbot, Devon, provides meal solutions comprising mostly pasta with fresh sauces. The meals are served hot from "pasta bars" that are loaned out free-of-charge to the customer base. As a healthy and tasty food offering, Pasta King has become very popular in secondary shcools nationwide, it satisfies Governmental standards on salt, fat, fibre and vegetable content that were mandatorily imposed on all food served in schools from September 2009. As such, it provides a quick, convenient, off-the shelf solution for caterers faced with an ever narrowing choice of menu options to offer to students.

In addition to its dominant position in the UK secondary school market, Pasta King has a growing presence in universities, business and industry and the leisure sectors. It has also recently received approval by the NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency (“PASA”) for supply into hospitals and other primary healthcare trust establishments.

NBGI PE is backing Howard Farquhar and Mike Cole as respectively Pasta King’s new Managing Director and Chairman. They have become shareholders in the acquisition vehicle alongside NBGIPE’s majority equity stake. Both Farquhar and Cole are well known to NBGIPE; they formed the cornerstone of the management team NBGIPE backed in 2003 in its successful investment in Brambles Foods, a sandwich manufacturer, which generated an internal rate of return of 52% p.a. for NBGIPE’s Fund.

Richard Morley, Director of NBGIPE commented:
“We are delighted to be backing Howard and Mike for the second time on an MBI into the food service sector. They are a very high quality team and I’m confident that they will take the business to new levels by further development of the successful Pasta King model."

Howard Farquhar, Managing Director, said:
“Pasta King has a very strong position in secondary schools. We want to build on that with improved merchandising, marketing and product development not only for further growth in the education sector but also to significantly increase our presence in other markets.”

Richard Babington of NBGIPE has joined Howard and Mike on the new board of Pasta King.

Bank debt for the transaction was provided by HSBC Leveraged Finance (South West). Geldards (Nottingham) provided legal advice to the purchaser, with Ernst and Young (Bristol) and CIL (London) undertaking financial and commercial due diligence services respectively.

Contacts:
Richard Morley
NBGI Private Equity
+44 (0)207 661 5676

Howard Farquhar
+44 (0)7710 982 570

Piers Hooper
Equus Group
+44 (0)207 223 1100