Be At One secures new banking facility and sites

The 13-strong group, which is backed by Piper Private Equity, will open on the site of the former Fluid bar in Smithfield Market at the end of January and the former Slug and Lettuce on Fenchurch St in the City, in February.

The group, which is led by Steve Locke, Rhys Oldfield and Leigh Miller, has secured the Sahara site in Reading city centre for its debut outside the capital.

It has also reached agreement on a further site in London, which will take its estate to 17 sites by the middle of end of the first quarter and further towards its goal of growing to up to 30 sites within the next three years.

The ambitious growth plan over the next six months will be supported by the new £4m banking facility which was agreed with Lloyds Bank in December.

The chain saw like-for-like growth of 8% for the first nine months of its current financial year to the end of March, with EBITDA forecast to reach £1.7m for the full year, up from £1.1m, while turnover will reach £11m, up from £9m. It saw a 12% like-for-like growth for the five weeks of December.

Locke said: “In the last year, we have really been able to focus the business to prepare a rapid growth plan. Our fantastic sales from last year are a reflection of how hard everyone has worked to concentrate on the quality of the existing business in order to organise ourselves for growth. We are very excited about moving outside of London as well as opening more sites within the city.”

Greg Brown, Be At One’s relationship manager at Lloyds Bank says, “We’re delighted to support Be At One and their growth strategy using the Funding for Lending Scheme. They are a solid business with a clear strategy and a passionate and professional management team who truly understand the sector in which they operate”.