Nightcap buys Dirty Martini for £4.65m

Nightcap, the late night operator led by Sarah Willingham, has agreed an asset purchase agreement with DC Bars Limited, the owning company of the Dirty Martini cocktail brand. 

The deal, worth a total of £4.65m, will see Nightcap take control of the 10 Dirty Martini bars and the Dirty Martini brand, which the business believes has significant roll-out potential.

With five bars in London and another five across Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Manchester and Cardiff, the move will be Nightcap's first expansion into Manchester and Leeds. The Dirty Martini deal is Willingham's fourth acquisition in under three years, adding to purchases of The Cocktail Club, Barrio and The Adventure Bar Group. 

The Dirty Martini venues generated aggregated unaudited site level revenue and EBITDA of £23.7m and £3.9m respectively for 2022.

"We couldn't be happier to welcome Dirty Martini to the Nightcap family," says Willingham. "These are long-established, well-run bars that fit well with our existing portfolio and our model of running multiple brands in clusters in London and around the country.

"Dirty Martini's late-night bars operate in a similar way to ours. They have great bars in excellent locations with impressive fitouts, following over £10m of capital investment. We will embed the Dirty Martini site operations into our existing head office infrastructure and expect to see synergies across the business as we continue to grow."

Trading update

In its full-year trading update, Nightcap says the influence of train strikes has been the main source of disruption to the the 52-week period ending 2 July 2023.

Recovering these lost revenues, particularly during the key 2022 Christmas trading weeks, has proved a particular challenge for the group. Its management team estimates that the 28 train strike days over its financial year cost the group a total of approximately £2.9m in revenue and £1.9m in EBITDA. 

"While the rail strikes have been detrimental to our current year performance, we are extremely proud of Nightcap's successful new openings, the growth we have achieved and the foundation we have built for the future," adds Willingham. "Without the impact of rail strikes we would have had an exceptional year, which bodes well for next year.

"With the acquisition of Dirty Martini, we have a sizeable late night bar group with significant potential for further growth in the years ahead and we therefore look to FY 2024 with increased confidence."

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