Hat tip to the young dynamic duo at the Evening Standard for landing a rather good scoop about Pret a Manger buying rival Eat.
Indeed, it was Mark Shapland and Laura Onita from the Evening Standard's business section broke the news about Pret's plans to turn Eat locations into vegetarian-only sandwich shops and here is a link to their tale:..
City hacks are trying hard to dig up deal stories. This week, for example, Mark "The Kleinmanator" Kleinman of Sky News "revealed" that the owners of sandwhich chain Eat and department store Liberty had hired advisers to find purchasers for both businesses.
However, according to Betaville's well-placed sources, there are just as many, if not more, deals falling over in the UK during this period of extreme political uncertainty...
It never ceases to amaze Betaville what you can learn over lunch from an old contacts you haven't seen in a while. That's old school journalism for you, I guess. Anyway, onto the actual story:
Lyceum Capital, the private equity firm that owns the well-known sandwhich shop EAT, has stopped fundraising and seen several departures, triggering speculation about the firm's future...