The sushi chain YO!’s parent company has picked further advisers for a potential £750m listing even as market jitters exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine threaten a slew of company flotations.
Sky News has learnt that Snowfox Group is working with Barclays, Jefferies and Peel Hunt on a prospective initial public offering (IPO).
Mayfair Equity Partners, the company’s controlling shareholder, is said to have identified March or April as possible dates to announce Snowfox’s intention to float.
Deliberations about a listing are taking place alongside ongoing discussions with third parties which have expressed an interest in buying Snowfox outright.
YO! is owned by Snowfox
However, market sources believe the prospects for a series of IPOs, including those of Snowfox and Burger King UK, face delays because of stock market volatility.
One investment banker not involved in either restaurant chain’s IPO planning said 2022 was shaping up to be a “barren” year for substantial London listings.
Snowfox has become a major international player in the Japanese food wholesale sector, selling more than 60 million trays of sushi annually and supplying retailers such as Tesco and Asda in the UK.
It now operates only 65 YO!-branded restaurants, having cut hundreds of jobs and closed a significant number of sites in 2020.
Snowfox’s dual-track process reflects a turnaround in the performance of one of the many UK-based casual dining businesses forced to undertake financial restructurings as a result of the pandemic.
The company has been able to recover relatively quickly because of the growing dominance of its American operations, which trade under the Snowfox name at hundreds of grocery store counters.
It has also appointed the former Argos chief John Walden as chairman, while it is run by chief executive Richard Hodgson, a former Asda and PizzaExpress executive.
In its UK operations, Snowfox has devised a contactless format where customers can order remotely and have food delivered to them on YO!’s sushi conveyor belts.
Since its initial investment in YO! in 2015, Mayfair has helped to secure the takeover of Canada’s Bento Sushi and a merger with Snowfox in the US last year.
A Mayfair spokesman declined to comment.
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