Permira to buy Japan sushi restaurant chain for about $1bln

HONG KONG/TOKYO | Fri Aug 24, 2012 3:02am EDT

HONG KONG/TOKYO Aug 24 (Reuters) - European private equity f irm Permira said on Friday it has agreed to buy Japan's largest sushi restaurant chain, Akindo Sushiro Co Ltd, for around $1 billion including debt, in what is set to be the nation's second-biggest buyout deal this year.

Permira, which struck the deal with Japanese buyout fund Unison Capital to buy Akindo, is already working on expansion plans that include taking the chain into China, Permira's co-head of Asia, Alex Emery, told Reuters.

"The company is now in a position to double or triple the number of stores in the next decade," said Emery. "They have three stores in Korea, and they're actively thinking of China an d other overseas markets."

Akindo Sushiro is the second large restaurant chain buyout for a global private equity firm in Japan in the last 12 months, after Bain Capital acquired Skylark for $2.1 billion last year.

Akindo had annual sales of around 100 billion yen in 2011, and has been growing at around 10 percent a year, said Emery. Akindo Sushiro's family friendly restaurants buck the formal style of Japan's traditional sushi restaurants, Emery said, and its average price per meal of around 1,000 yen is about half the cost of a meal at a mid-range Japanese sushi restaurant. (Reporting by Stephen Aldred and Junko Fujita; Editing by Denny Thomas and Muralikumar Anantharaman)

Source: http://feeds.reuters.com/~r/reuters/privateequityNews/~3/5T9RSMxJKto/permira-japan-idUSL4E8JO1RD20120824

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