A FAMILY favourite restaurant chain has been saved from administration after a major buyout.

Hostmore, the UK owner and operator of TGI Fridays, has been sold just weeks after the struggling restaurant business went under.

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Breal Capital and Calveton, which jointly owns the posh restaurant business D&D London, have acquired the chain.

The rescue deal saves 51 of the chain’s 87 sites and at least 2,000 of its more than 3,000-strong workforce.

Buyers have no obligation to purchase the entirety of a bust chain.

TGI says that it is hopeful that it “may be able to secure further locations” following discussions with the landlords.

However, 36 TGI restaurants and over 1,000 staff members remain at risk for the time being.

Julie McEwan, chief executive of TGI Fridays UK, said: “TGI Fridays is a much-loved brand with a rich heritage.

“The news today marks the start of a positive future for our business following a very challenging period for the casual dining sector as a whole.

“We look to the future with confidence that the TGI Fridays brand will continue to attract loyal and new guests.”

A spokesperson for the new owners said: “We are delighted to be working with such an enthusiastic and committed Management Team to both modernise the business and capitalise on the heritage of this iconic Brand.”

The American-inspired restaurant chain continues to operate all sites as usual today.

TGI Fridays plunged into administration on September 18, putting all 87 locations at risk.

When a company enters administration, all control is passed to an appointed administrator – who has to be a licensed insolvency practitioner.

Their goal is to leverage the company’s assets and business to repay creditors.

In TGI’s case, all 87 restaurants were put up for sale.

Hostmore said that it was not expecting to “recover any meaningful value” from the sale of sites.

Since its debut in Birmingham in 1986, TGI Fridays quickly expanded nationwide, winning over diners with its casual American bistro-style experience.

Serving staff were known as Dub Dubs, and taught the art of entertaining their customers with jokes, banter, and other gimmicks like juggling and magic tricks, all performed with impeccable table craft and cheeriness.

A decade ago, the chain was acquired by a private equity firm, which rebranded it by removing all punctuation, resulting in the name being changed from T.G.I Friday’s to TGI Fridays.

In 2021, the company was spun off into Hostmore, a listed entity. The restaurants were briefly rebranded as ‘Fridays,’ but marketing chiefs quickly reverted to the original name after realising that customers still referred to it as ‘TGI’s.’

Recently, the chain’s fortunes have waned, with Hostmore reporting that UK sales have dropped by more than 10% this year compared to last year.

TGI Fridays’ biggest market is the US, where it operates 128 restaurants, including franchised sites.

It also operates more than 270 restaurants in countries around the world.

HOSPITALITY WOES

The hospitality sector has struggled to bounce back after the pandemic, facing challenges including soaring energy bills, inflation and staff shortages.

In January 2023, Byron Burger fell into administration with owners saying it would result in the loss of over 200 jobs.

The Restaurant Group (TRG), which owned Frankie & Benny’s, Chiquito and Wagamama, shut dozens of sites in the same year.

It then went on to sell its Frankie & Bennys and Chiquito brands to Cafe Rouge owner The Big Table group in September 2023.

Italian restaurant chain Prezzo also closed dozens of sites last year.

In April 2024, Tasty, the owners of Italian restaurant Wildwood and Dim T, a pan-Asian restaurant, announced plans to exit around 20 loss-making restaurants after a “challenging” start to the year.

In the same month, Whitbread revealed plans to slash its chain of branded restaurants across the UK.

Pub giant Stonegate has also raised fears about its survival as it races to plug its debts.

Britain’s “rudest restaurant” went bust in September after its parent company, Viral Ventures UK, reportedly racked up more than £400,000 worth of debt.

Global equities, as measured by the MSCI World index, have delivered an annualised return of just under 5% since 2000. Not bad.

But investors can now lock in coupon payments from global credit at yields close to historical equity returns without equity risk factors.

It looks like a new golden age for bonds.

When corporate bond yields began climbing rapidly at the start of 2022, it created difficulty for many market participants. However, this rise sets the stage for bond investors to reap higher levels of income than previously available.

Here’s why. Currently, the average investment grade corporate yield is around 5.1%, as measured by the S&P Global Developed Corporate Bond index. Meanwhile, high-yield corporate bonds yield around 8.3%, according to the S&P US Dollar Global High Yield Corporate Bond index.

Both currently out-yield global equities, which are delivering just 1.8%.

Critically, many corporate issuers have funding costs well below current market yields, so they have been insulated from the rise in rates. That’s because 62% of investment-grade corporate bonds and 69% of high-yield bonds were issued before 2022.

While a bond investor should care about yield and not typically make issuance year a focus, this dynamic provides some cushion of safety to bond investors as the cost of corporate funding is rising slowly.

This sets up the potential for a win-win for both bond investors and the companies in which they invest. A win for the investor, as they can harvest today’s higher yields from high-quality companies, and a win for corporations, as they can comfortably service their debts at pre-2022 coupon levels.

Lopsided equity opportunities

At the same time, equity markets are becoming increasingly lopsided and dominated by a small number of US companies.

The outperformance of mega-cap tech stocks, led by the Magnificent Seven, has resulted in a huge divergence between the MSCI World US index and the MSCI World ex. US index, with US equities growing to over 70% of the MSCI World index.

Although the ascent of the Magnificent Seven has reflected a period of exceptional earnings growth, their dominance means many equity investors are now more concentrated than they realise.

Notably, global equities rose in Q2 this year but this was mostly driven by only two sectors – information technology and communication services. In fact, the percentage of companies in the MSCI World index whose price is above their 100-day moving average fell during Q2 from 80% to just above 50%.

So, active or passive?

Given where we are in the economic cycle, plus the political landscape, we expect volatility to increase and this should create plenty of market dislocations to exploit.

That’s why we believe now is a good time to be active in fixed income. The rise of passive investing in the last decade has dramatically reduced the cost of investing in bonds, but it has also created significant inefficiencies for active bond investors to exploit, as comparatively less active money has been available to arbitrage away relative or absolute value opportunities.

A key risk for passive bond investing is that fixed-income benchmarks are fundamentally flawed in a way equity indices aren’t.

Unlike equity indices, bond indices tend to apply weightings based on debt outstanding. This can mean passive bond investors are unintentionally overweight and overexposed to more heavily indebted companies.

Relative value opportunities

An active approach to bond investing allows intentional tilts in favour of bonds backed by companies with strong credit characteristics and those at an attractive valuation, among other risk factor tilts.

A savvy bond investor can also exploit inefficiencies that arise from large index-tracking strategies that are focused on closely tracking a benchmark, rather than risk-adjusted return generation.

Targeting inefficiencies effectively means casting a wide net across the fixed-income universe, including corporates, governments, municipals, mortgage-backed securities, global bonds, emerging markets and structured credit, and combining the best opportunities with precise risk scaling.

Market inefficiencies are often durable but not large. Most notably, the risk premium available on individual bonds can be inefficiently priced, allowing credit-focused managers to target multiple security-selection opportunities.

It is time for investors to increase their allocations to fixed income. The rise in yields has created an opportunity to lock in attractive income streams for the long-term.

Fixed income assets have historically been significantly less volatile than equities, experiencing shallower drawdowns with faster recoveries. This can enable investors to achieve their long-term objectives with greater certainty via more reliable, income-driven returns.

Bonds might lack the glamour and buzz of many of the investment trends of the last decade, but they have the potential income, return, risk profile and staying power many are seeking. Welcome to the new golden age of bond investing.

Adam Whiteley is head of global credit at Insight Investment

A PEOPLE’S Postcode Lottery winner had told how he had to beg his boss for a day off to accept his £111,111 prize.

Michael Whitaker, from Keighley in West Yorkshire, skipped out on a vital meeting which left his colleagues fuming. 

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Michael said he rang up his boss to tell her he wouldn’t be able to make his 11am design and compliance meeting because he had to accept his winnings.

His boss was forced to lie to others in the 11am design and compliance meeting, hiding the real reason for Michael’s absence.

He said: “I rang my boss and told her Postcode Lottery are here. But I had a design and compliance finance meeting at 11am and I had all the figures.

“Luckily, my boss was ecstatic for me and said she wouldn’t tell anyone in the meeting as to why I couldn’t make it.”

Michael added that he would now have to apologise to his boss for the blunder.

He added: “I’m going to ring my boss up and apologise that I didn’t make the meeting, but look at this.”

The adrenaline junky joined others on his street in bagging £111,111, which he hopes to use towards a “once-in-a-lifetime” tour around the Norweigan Fjords.

Michael, who has scuba dived all around the country, said he was astounded when he received the cheque.

“When I saw the cheque, I thought £11,000 and then… I processed it and there was six digits! It’s incredible,” he said.

When asked what he was going to do with all of the extra money he said he dreamt of taking his new motorbike, a Triumph Tiger 900, on a road trip.

“I want to go more adventuring. I want to get out there, I want to see places, I want to go places,” he said.

He added: “You have dreams but they’re not dreams anymore now. This brings them into reality.”

The clerk landed the massive cash prize along with eight of his neighbours in Shann Crescent, Keighly, after their postcode BD21 2TN landed the weekly Millionaire Street prize on Monday.

Every cheque was worth £111,111.

Across the road, Sanna Babar, who also cashed in the six-figure sum, said she is now planning a trip to Walt Disney World in Florida for her two daughters.

She said: “We were thinking of going to Disneyland Paris in August next year, but it could be Florida now!”

“I was trying to save up money, but I don’t need to do that now and I could bring my mum and dad too. It was a sort of fantasy before, but I’m going to do it,” she added.

For Melanie Granger a postwoman in the area, winning a share of the £1 million was particularly special as she had previously delivered these gold envelopes herself.

Melanie, who works out of Royal Mail’s Skipton Delivery Office, plans on exploring more of the Caribbean and buying a new iPad with the money.

But first the postie is kicking-off her spending-spree in style by booking a trip to Spain for her cousin’s wedding.

She said: “My cousin, who lives in London, is getting married to his Spanish fiancée in Granada and I’m going to the wedding. It’ll be a very good party, that’s for sure.”

“It’s definitely the best envelope I’ve ever had,” she said.

The postie had coincidentally taken the day off from work, which meant she was able to proudly accept the “big envelope with a huge cheque.”

“Everything has come together. I’m normally working, and I’ve picked the right day for my day off,” she said.

Some 33 per cent of tickets go to charity and good causes, says the People’s Postcode Lottery website.

This time round, Keighley Healthy Living, a charity which provides a variety of groups and services to locals in the community, was awarded £80,000 by the Postcode Community Trust.

Melanie Hey, CEO of Keighley Healthy Living, said: “When we received the call about the funding, we just couldn’t believe it. Not only because £80,000 is a phenomenal amount of money, but because it’s been granted to us at the perfect time.

The winners told People’s Postcode Lottery that they were thrilled to have helped local organisation receive extra funding as a result of their win.

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Elston Consulting has expanded its team to meet a rising demand for its products as the popularity of its model portfolios continues to grows.

Tony Lord has joined the firm as an adviser relations manager. He has over 30 years’ experience in the industry, helping to grow platforms from launch to maturity.

Alongside Elston Consulting head of adviser relations Scott Adams, he will focus on working with new and established adviser firms to support their investment proposition.

Henry Vijayaratnam also joins as an associate in the investment research team.

Vijayaratnam completed the Elston Summer Internship in May 2024 and will report to investment director Hoshang Daroga and head of research Henry Cobbe.

Elston Consulting said the two appointments will strengthen the group’s capabilities as it “continues to bring its model portfolios capabilities to advice firms and DFMs.”

Elston has seen increased adviser enthusiasm for the Elston Adaptive range of portfolios, designed for accumulation and Elston Retirement range of portfolios designed for decumulation.

These portfolios are managed by Elston Portfolio Management and are available across most adviser platforms.

Cobbe said: “We are delighted to welcome Tony Lord and Henry Vijayaratnam to Elston. They will be an asset to our firm. This is an exciting time for Elston as we are seeing rapidly growing interest in the investment solutions we design.

“We are thrilled to be able to expand the team to continue serving the adviser firms we work with and supporting their investment proposition.”

Lord added: “Advisers are facing many different demands on their businesses, not least the need to provide consistent investment outcomes to their clients at a competitive cost.

“I am delighted to be joining Elston tasked with supporting advisers with their investment propositions using the high-calibre solutions Elston can develop for advisers.”

Vijayaratnam said: “I am thrilled to be joining Elston as a permanent team member following a summer internship, in which I learned a huge amount from colleagues.

“I am looking forward to making my mark in the financial services space and progressing my career with Elston Consulting.”