Billionaire Richard Caring to promote The Ivy eating places for £1billion

The billionaire restauranteur dubbed the ‘King of Mayfair’ Richard Caring is on the brink of selling The Ivy restaurants in a £1billion deal, according to reports.

London-based investment firm Si Advisors is nearing a deal to buy the Ivy Collection, which runs dozens of sites across the UK, Sky News has reported.

The Ivy has been at the centre of London’s social scene for the past 100 years and has seen hundreds of stars and business people pass through its doors.

Mr Caring owns a controlling stake in the company, which runs the original Ivy in West London, its spin-off chain restaurants and Ivy Asia sites, alongside Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani, the former prime minister of Qatar.

The pair put the business up for auction at the start of the year, with the Sunday Times first reporting they had set a £1 billion valuation.

Both are expected to sell their stakes as part of the deal.

However, the deal will not include Caprice Holdings, Mr Caring’s group of other restaurants including London’s Scott’s, Sexy Fish, J Sheekey or private members clubs Annabel’s and Mark’s Club in Mayfair.

Mr Caring and the Ivy Collection declined to comment on the reports.

The identity of buyers Si Advisors will come as a surprise given the list of prominent sovereign and private investors who considered bidding for The Ivy Collection. 

The Ivy was founded in Covent Garden in central London in 1917 by Abel Giandolini and Mario Gallati, before the pair then opened popular restaurant Le Caprice.

In 2005, Mr Caring bought the Caprice Holdings group, before spinning off the Ivy Collection arm to rapidly expand the restaurant brand.

He has since embarked on a wildly successful expansion of The Ivy brand, taking it to dozens of locations across London and the south of England, with a few locations also in the north, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Ireland. 

Most recent Companies House accounts showed the company delivered earnings of £54.8 million and turnover of almost £303 million for the year to January 2023.

Mr Caring has also been a shareholder in the company which owns the Soho House chain of private members’ clubs. The businessman is widely regarded as the most successful investor in upmarket hospitality assets of his generation.

The Ivy has continued to go from strength to strength, with the top end of the London hospitality industry faring resiliently despite Britain’s generally sluggish economy.

The venue has remained a hotspot for stars, with a pregnant Margot Robbie seen in July making sure she gave her fans a really good time when she treated them to a round of drinks at The Ivy Chelsea Garden.

The actress, 34, who is pregnant with her first child, was joined by her husband Tom Ackerley at the restaurant as they treated diners to their Papa Salt Coastal Gin.

Earlier in the summer Sir Michael Caine, 91, was seen pushing a walker as he joined by wife Shakira, 77, for a night out at The Ivy.

A flamboyant figure, Mr Caring paid £150,000 in 2019 to dine with Boris Johnson at his own venue, Mark’s Club. He made the donation to the Conservatives during their fundraiser at the Hurlingham Club in Fulham, south-west London, where he sat next to then-prime minister Theresa May.

Mr Caring started his career in clothing, before buying the Caprice Holdings group for £31.5million in 2005 to start his restaurant business.

In 2020, Mr Caring pledged to feed thousands of NHS workers and the critically vulnerable by opening up the kitchens of his restaurants.

Mr Caring, together with his wife Patricia and The Caring Foundation, said they wanted to help feed those in need during this ‘tunnel of darkness’.

Some 5,000 meals a week were made in Annabel’s four kitchens and distributed to staff at London hospitals including the Chelsea & Westminster, West Middlesex University Hospital, St Thomas’ and St Mary’s.

He also partnered with The Felix Project – London’s biggest food redistribution charity – to help feed 20,000 isolated elderly people, families with no income and NHS workers.