Offer talks continue at Inventive as sales pick up

Talks are continuing between vodka bar operator Inventive Leisure and a prospective bidder for the company.

Inventive, which runs 40 Revolution vodka bars throughout the UK, announced at the beginning of September that it had received a preliminary indicative approach from a private equity house to buy the group.

These talks were ongoing but Sean Curran, Inventive's finance director, said the company could not comment on how they were progressing.

Meanwhile like-for-like trading across Inventive's estate was "in positive territory" in October following a dip in September.

Overall sales have risen by six per cent in line with the group' s budgetary targets, while like-for-likes across the Revolution estate in the first 17 weeks of the current financial year were the same as the comparative period.

"We're seeing a pretty stable markets at the moment," said Mr Curran. "We have a strong USP in vodka and DJ entertainment, and we're growing our food business with a view to attracting daytime and early evening customers."

Mr Curran said the group could grow food sales to eight per cent of sales from its current five per cent level "without making the bars feel like canteens".

Inventive said it had opened two new Revolution bars in the current financial year and had three openings in the pipeline, two of which would boost this year's sales.

It had announced figures in September which showed sales for the year to June 30 2005 up 7.8 per cent to £44.9m, with pre-tax profits up 45 per cent to £3.6m.