Bristol-based Latin American restaurant chain Las Iguanas has been bought by the owner of Cafe Rouge and Bella Italia for £85m.
Casual Dining Group acquired the business from its private equity owners Bowmark Capital. Las Iguanas, which opened its first branch in Bristol’s St Nicholas Street in 1991, now has 41 outlets across the UK.
Las Iguanas chairman and co-founder Eren Ali announced today he plans to step down from the group. 
He said: “The business has never been stronger. It has been a privilege to work with the team at Las Iguanas and Bowmark Capital to build such a strong brand. I have every confidence in the potential of the business and look forward to seeing it flourish under its new ownership structure.”
Bowmark paid £27m to acquire Las Iguanas from previous owners Piper Private Equity in 2006 when it had 14 restaurants, mainly in the South West. Piper itself had backed the business for five years through a minority stake which helped it grow from four restaurants. Previously the business had received investment from venture capital firm 3i.
Mr Ali and co-founder Ajith Jayawickrema opened the first Las Iguanas with a £10,000 bank loan in a former Italian restaurant – one of seven to have failed on the site.
Bowmark partner Ron Pearson said: “Las Iguanas has delivered strong like-for-like sales growth throughout our ownership, even during the recession.
“We have worked closely with the business to achieve a truly national footprint and this success is a tribute to the quality of the management.”
Las Iguanas’ annual pre-tax profits rose by 13% to £4.9m on sales up 19% to £48.4m in the year to the end of March 2014 – its latest set of accounts filed at Companies House.
Mos Shamel, who took over as Las Iguanas chief executive last year from former Wagamama boss Steve Hill, will continue to run the business from its head office in Whiteladies Road.
Bowmark put the business up for sale in March through accountants BDO to ride the wave of investor interest in restaurant chains. Media reports at the time suggested it was seeking £100m for the group.
Among potential buyers said to have run the rule over Las Iguanas were Bridgepoint Capital, which owns the Ask and Zizzi Italian restaurant chains, Groucho Club backer Graphite, ECI and Equistone.
Casual Dining Group, formerly called Tragus, previously owned the Strada Italian restaurant chain but offloaded it as part of a major restructuring to Pizza Express founder Hugh Osmond – part of a flurry of takeover activity in the eating out sector which has also resulted in Pizza Express being sold to Chinese group Hony Capital and TGI Fridays snapped up by Electra Partners.
Since leaving the firm shortly after the Bowmark acquisition, Las Iguanas co-founder Ajith Jayawickrema has gone on to launch the Turtle Bay Caribbean café-bar chain and is also a non-executive director of Bristol-based Italian restaurant group Aqua and Tampopo, the Manchester-based pan-Asian eaterie chain.
