LONDON, UK: Tortilla Mexican Grill, fast-casual Mexican restaurant group in the UK, announced its intention to seek admission of its shares to trading on AIM, a market of the London Stock Exchange.
The Group is targeting circa 45 new sites over the next five years including building on the success of the existing portfolio of delivery-only ‘cloud-kitchens’. The Directors are also targeting further franchising and licencing opportunities.
Tortilla Mexican Grill specialises in the sale of freshly made Californian-inspired Mexican cuisine. The Group has 62 sites worldwide, comprising 50 sites in the UK operated by the Group, two sites franchised to Select Service Partners UK Limited (SSP Group) in the UK, and 10 franchised sites in the Middle East.
The brand is synonymous with an energetic, vibrant culture, and with providing a great value-for-money proposition. It embraces fast-growing sector trends (including eating out, healthy eating, provenance, ethnic cuisine, delivery) across a variety of locations, through a differentiated product offering which is popular with a broad customer base, and a clearly defined multi-channel marketing strategy. It benefits from flexible site locations and formats, and a scalable central infrastructure.
Tortilla Mexican Grill is also pleased to announce that Emma Woods has joined the Tortilla Board of Directors as non-executive chairwoman and Laurence Keen as a non-executive director.
Emma has extensive experience at Board level in multi-site leisure businesses. She is currently a non-executive director for The Gym Group plc and her hospitality experience includes being the CEO of Wagamama from December 2018 to June 2021. Laurence is currently CFO of Hollywood Bowl Group plc.
The Group has established a track record of strong financial performance driven by consistent expansion of the property portfolio and like-for-like growth. From FY2019 to LTM June 2021, the Group generated 250 per cent. EBITDA growth and opened eight stores. For the 12 months to June 2021 Tortilla outperformed the Coffer Peach Business Tracker by an average of 46 percentage points.
The Directors believe the Group is strongly positioned to capitalise on further growth opportunities in the post-Covid-19 pandemic landscape. The economic challenges facing the hospitality sector have resulted in a dramatically increased number of vacant units on the market with rent levels rebalancing to more sustainable levels, providing Tortilla with an unprecedented opportunity to accelerate its UK rollout strategy.
Richard Morris, Chief Executive Officer of Tortilla, said: “We are delighted to announce Tortilla’s Intention to Float on AIM, which marks an incredibly exciting milestone in our continued growth journey. Since its launch in 2007, Tortilla has established a long-term track record of strong financial performance driven by considered expansion of the property portfolio and like-for-like growth.
“The business has shown itself to be extraordinarily well positioned throughout the pandemic, as the Tortilla product proposition is well-suited to the growing delivery market and we have proved the brand’s flexibility to operate across a range of locations and formats, including smaller sites and cloud kitchens.
“We believe that this IPO unlocks our ability to consolidate on this momentum and enables us capitalise on significant long-term growth opportunities in the post-Covid-19 pandemic landscape.”