Paris (AFP)

Groupe Bertrand, the leading independent catering group in France with some 850 restaurants, has sold the Quick brand to the American fund HIG Capital, announced on Monday, four years after the resale of the Quick restaurants in Belgium and Luxembourg.

HIG "plans to finalize this acquisition by the end of the year after obtaining authorization from the competition authorities," said a press release, without indicating the amount of the transaction.

The network of 107 Quick Restaurants SA restaurants in France, which serves around 36 million meals a year - only halal meat, in which it has specialized over the years - is bought "from Burger King France ", a subsidiary of Groupe Bertrand, indicates HIG, and will therefore fall into the hands of the American fund.

The amount of the transaction would be 240 million euros, according to Agefi, which in January indicated that Groupe Bertrand wanted to finalize the sale of its Quick restaurants in France.

He had made the commitment after winning the Burger King franchise in France.

"Our investment will support the Quick management team during the transition phase to an independent group and above all accelerate the expansion of the restaurant network with the objective of doubling the number in the coming years", said Olivier Boyadjian, CEO of HIG Capital, quoted by the press release.

In addition to Quick until now, the group founded by Olivier Bertrand owns the Burger King fast food chain as well as major Parisian brasseries such as Lipp, La Coupole and Le Vaudeville.

At the end of 2015, he announced to buy the fast food chain Quick, present in France since 1980, taking over 401 restaurants, spread over France, Belgium, Luxembourg, but also in the overseas territories, in Tunisia. , in Turkey and Morocco.

But three months later, he put the Belgian and Luxembourgish Quick restaurants on sale, before launching in mid-2016 in France, a plan to convert Quick restaurants under the American Burger King banner, a process that was to be completed the year last, the first step of which was the sale of 101 Belgian and Luxembourg Quick restaurants to QSR Belgium.

"The sanitary restrictions have slowed us down in this project" of converting Quick restaurants under the Burger King banner, Jérôme Tafani, responsible for the two brands in France within Groupe Bertrand, told Agefi in January.

HIG has some $ 45 billion in assets under management, and specializes in "investing in equity and debt in mid-size companies," the statement said.

© 2021 AFP