Key Facts
Initial Investment: 15/05/2015
Sector: Consumer & Leisure
Fund: Buyout Fund II
Status: Current
Investment highlights so far
- More than quadrupled the size of the estate.
- Expanded geographical footprint to move business from being northern focused to having national presence include five sites in London
- Implemented numerous environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives, notably in terms of energy efficiency and staff welfare. The business has market-leading retention rates as a result.
- Built brand profile through extensive social media engagement and development of ancillary products.
- Supplemented the team through recruitment of a chief financial officer and property director, plus the addition of a further non-executive director to the board to support the executive team.
Partnership motivation
The Alchemist is a unique brand and had demonstrated significant growth and roll out potential across the UK. The recently opened Spinningfields site was one of the highest trading units in Manchester and we were impressed by its strong customer base, resulting from its innovative and theatrical cocktail offering. We were excited by the opportunity to grow the business across the UK by opening new venues in city-centre locations including growth in the London estate.
Palatine have encouraged investment into infrastructure, bringing in expertise where appropriate and crucially with Palatine they’ve got a very wide network established over many years, particularly around Manchester where we’re centrally located and in London where we’ve grown into. They’ve been really useful at connecting us into expertise, experience and quality people throughout the journey.
Palatine have really added value in the areas of environmental, social and governance (ESG). We now measure our ESG practices through the Palatine ESG framework, which helps us to prioritise the areas of material importance to the business and monitoring allows us to track and improve our progress.
The Alchemist
