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Nazca agrees to sell its stake in FoodBox to BlueGem Capital Partners, Lateral’s majority shareholder

Nazca agrees to sell its stake in FoodBox to BlueGem Capital Partners, Lateral’s majority shareholder

Nazca Capital, together with the founding partners -Carlos Pérez Tenorio and Augusto Méndez de Lugo-, has agreed to sell 100% of the shares of FoodBox to BlueGem Capital Partners, the majority shareholder of the group Lateral, another organized restaurant player of the Spanish market. The sale will take place during June 2022

  • FoodBox is one of the renowned multi-brand restaurant groups in the Spanish market. At the end of 2021, it had c. 190 operating facilities of its brands: Santagloria, Taberna del Volapie, Mas Q Menos and Papizza, 14 of which were company-owned and the rest franchised, with annual chain sales, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, of more than 80 million euros.
  •  BlueGem Capital Partners is a Private Equity fund with over €900 million in assets under management, distributed in three funds, which specializes in the mid-market and consumer sector, with a majority stake in the restoration groupLATERAL since 2017.
  • Nazca Capital founded the FoodBox project in 2015 with its own directors, Carlos Pérez Tenorio and Augusto Méndez de Lugo, by acquiring the brands that comprise it to its founders.
  • BlueGem’s objective with the acquisition of FoodBox is to consolidate its position in the Spanish foodservice market and to invest in various FoodBox brands to make them grow, including greater investment in company-owned units, as well as continuing to develop the brands through franchising agreements.
  • The current managers of the group, Carlos Perez Tenorio and Augusto Méndez de Lugo will remain in the project, and Enrique Francia will also join as president of the group. Enrique Francia, former CEO of VIPS Group until its sale to ALSEA, has been collaborating with BlueGem since the end of 2020 as senior advisor and president of restoration group LATERAL.

Madrid, 2 June 2022- NAZCA and the minority shareholders of FoodBox have reached an agreement with BlueGem for the divestment of 100% of the share capital of FoodBox, which will be completed in the coming days, once the usual requirements for such transactions have been formalized.

BlueGem will acquire FoodBox through one of its investees to enhance the development of its catering activities in Spain, where it is already the majority shareholder of the restoration group LATERAL. LATERAL has 16 owned restaurants in different Spanish cities with a turnover, before the effects of COVID, close to 30 million euros. After a phase of adaptation and strengthening of the brand and once the effects of the pandemic have been recovered, LATERAL has resumed the path of growth with between three and five openings planned for 2022, and a rate of openings for the following years of around 8 new company-owned restaurants per year.

BlueGem’s project for FoodBox is clearly a commitment to the growth and development of its brands, incorporating not only the expansion via franchises but also a significant investment in its proprietary units in order to increase its own dimension and capacity and to be able to evolve faster and more intensely the development and relevance of its brands.

BlueGem is a fund specialized in the consumer sector and, consequently, the constant evolution and improvement of the brands, and their value proposition and relevance to clients is an essential part of the strategy in any of its investments.  Marco Capello, founder and Managing Partner of BlueGem said “We are very pleased with this transaction which will allow us to boost our activities in Spain, and we are confident that our experience in the consumer sector will bring importance and development to the FoodBox brands, as well as accelerate the development of LATERAL, where we have made a major renovation effort over the last year”.

Carlos Pérez de Jáuregui, partner of NAZCA, expressed his satisfaction “FoodBox represents the latest divestment of our Nazca III Fund. We are proud that, together with Augusto and Carlos, we have been able to create from scratch a multi-brand restaurant platform of reference in Spain. We are confident about the success of the next phase of FoodBox”.

Carlos Pérez Tenorio and Augusto Méndez de Lugo, co-founding partners of FoodBox, have declared that “a new period in the development and growth of our brands is beginning, as much for the investment drive of the new Fund as for the accumulated expertise of the professionals that we have brought together in this project. The commercial chain restaurant sector in our country lives and has an enormous projection for the future and we will be at the forefront of this effect”.

Socios Financieros and DLA Pipper have participated in the transaction as advisors to NAZCA and EY and CMS Albiñana & Suarez de Lezo have advised BlueGem.

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