THE Scottish founders of
Glasgow bar, restaurant and hotel Groucho Saint Jude's have taken full control by paying more than (pounds) 1m to buy out the 50% stake owned by the Groucho Club in London and reduce bank debt.
Paul Wingate, an information technology consultant, and Bobby Paterson, who played and toured with 1980s band Love and Money, raised the money through a deal involving the Bath Street property.
Wingate would not go into details, citing confidentiality agreements, but the transaction would appear likely to have been some kind of sale-and-leaseback.
Wingate, 41, said the venture, which is being renamed Saint Jude's, now had ''very little borrowings''.
He added that Saint Jude's, which claims a ''discreetly cool'' customer base including people in the media and music industries, was trading profitably at the moment, and ahead of budget.
Wingate and Paterson had, when they dreamed up the idea of Saint Jude's, intended to pursue the venture on their own. They bought the property four years ago.
However, six months before the conclusion of a development which was running over budget and behind schedule, the Groucho Club came on board. Groucho Saint Jude's opened in 1999.
The 50% stake has been bought by Wingate and Paterson from Kapital Ventures, a company run by Joel Cadbury which bought the Groucho Club in London last year and has other licensed trade interests.
Wingate emphasised there would be no significant changes to the way Saint Jude's operated, only some ''fine-tuning''.
He believed the dropping of the Groucho name would help dispel the notion that Saint Jude's was a private members' club.
Paterson, 42, who made money from the sale of the Mojo bar in Bath Street, and Wingate have switched from Royal Bank of Scotland to Allied Irish Banks for their debt funding.
Asked about their expansion plans, Wingate said Paterson was talking about Paris and that they might look at opening another boutique hotel. They also had an idea for another ''concept'' which might work in Glasgow.
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