Taylor St Baristas – one of the City’s favourite coffee houses and a trailblazer in London’s speciality coffee scene – has announced plans to raise up to £3m through the launch of the UK’s first crowd-sourced “Coffee Bond”.
Taylor St plans to double the size of its business in the next 2 years, with Bond proceeds being used to open 4 shops in 2015, and a further 6 shops in 2016.
Consumers choose “quality”
This comes in the wake of research that reveals that 32% of consumers now choose their coffee shop based on “quality” – up from 23% in 2009. This is seen to be one of the most dominant consumer trends in an industry that, according to leading coffee market researchers Allegra Strategies, is set to top £8bn in turnover by 2017.
“This is a great time for Taylor St to be growing its business,” says Taylor St CEO Richard Shaer. “Every day, we’re seeing new people walk through our doors in search of better coffee, and the size of this “quality” segment is only getting bigger.”
“As one of London’s leading speciality coffee houses, we’re exceptionally placed to benefit from this consumer trend towards quality coffee.”
The bond
In a first for the industry, bondholders can elect to have their coupon paid in the form of store credit at the rate of 12% per annum. “So many of our regulars have asked to get more involved in Taylor St. Something like this will give them just that opportunity. It’ll allow them to benefit directly from the support they daily give our business,” said Mr Shaer.
Alternatively, bondholders can choose to have their coupon paid in cash at the rate of 8% per annum. “We anticipate a lot of interest in the bond – but not everyone will be close enough to a Taylor St café to benefit from the store credit. So we’re offering a cash coupon as well.”
The bond will be issued via crowd-sourcing site Crowdcube (crowdcube.com/tsb).
About Taylor St Baristas
Established in 2006, Taylor St today boasts 9 shops in locations such as the City, Mayfair and Canary Wharf. The business was founded by Australian siblings Nick, Andrew and Laura Tolley at a time when you could count on one hand the number of quality coffee shops in London. Since 2006, they’ve helped blaze a trail for specialty coffee in London, with their coffee shops regularly featuring in surveys of the country’s best coffee shops.
In 2012, Taylor St established a Joint Venture with Tesco to create Harris + Hoole – one of the fastest growing coffee chains in the country. Nick Tolley moved across to H+H at this time as its founding CEO – but maintains an involvement in Taylor St as the company’s Chairman.
Around this time, Richard Shaer – a longstanding coffee enthusiast from way back – replaced Nick asCEO of Taylor St.
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