Camerons Brewery have today announced the acquisition of the Bar Soba group, the acquisition adds 5 venues in the UK, seeing the brewer’s retail managed pub estate increase to 34 sites. Bar Soba has three venues in Glasgow and one in Edinburgh and Leeds.
Chris Soley, chief executive at Camerons Brewery said of the acquisition: “This is a deal we have been working on for some time and we are delighted that this has now gone through. We have been extremely impressed by the Bar Soba brand and identified the potential for this group to develop.
“Growing our retail pub group is one of our key business strategies and we will continue to look to add more venues to our various pub brands. We identified an opportunity to add another brand in our portfolio to complement the offers in our The Head of Steam and Urban Country Pubs and we feel the unique food and drinks experience Bar Soba offers gives us an exciting new opportunity to grow our estate further.
“A big part of the acquisition involves retaining the staff who have been involved in Bar Soba’s success. All of the current management team and staff will remain in place and this business will operate independently as a standalone business. We look forward to welcoming David Ladd back into our business as he was a great asset to Camerons when he worked with us previously within our operations team.”
David Ladd, CEO at Bar Soba was delighted with the deal saying: “We are all delighted and very excited to be part of Camerons Brewery. Bar Soba is a fantastic, successful brand with a highly talented and dedicated team. With support from the management team at Camerons we are all looking forward to new opportunities to grow the business.”
“On a personal level I would like to thank the Business Growth Fund for their support, I am however thrilled to be working with everyone at Camerons again” David added.
The brewer also acknowledged the continued support of HSBC who have helped Camerons finance the acquisition of the Bar Soba group. Thanks also went to Weightmans who provided legal advice and to Grant Thornton & UNW for providing financial due diligence on the transaction.