Sapphire Foods operates 437 restaurants under the KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell brands in India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives as of March 2021.
The investment is flowing into its holding company, Sapphire Foods Mauritius, an entity promoted by Samara Capital, the statement said.
“The money will be used to fund the new store expansion as we feel the business has a strong foundation and is on an inflection point, apart from providing partial exit for a few investors,” Sanjay Purohit, the group chief executive at Sapphire Foods, said without disclosing the name of investors who have partially cashed out.
Sapphire Foods, an omnichannel restaurant operator and the largest franchisee of Yum Brands in the Indian sub-continent, is backed by marquee investors such as Samara Capital, Goldman Sachs, CX Partners and Edelweiss.
Sumeet Narang, the founder and managing director at Samara India Advisors, said the QSR chain segment, largely represented by global brands, is the fastest growing segment within the organised food services market in the country. Sapphire Foods, by leveraging customer loyalty to the KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell brands is well-positioned to capture further opportunities and expand into other product lines or markets.
Avendus Capital acted as exclusive financial advisor to Sapphire and UBS Investment Bank acted as exclusive financial advisor to Samara Capital.
Samara Capital, founded in 2007, is a mid-market private equity firm and its investors include high quality institutional investors and family offices from around the globe.
Creador is a private equity firm specialising in growth capital investments and typically invests in consumer, retail, FMCG, financial services, pharma, healthcare, business services, technology, and media across India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka. Founded in 2011, it manages over USD 2 billion in assets.
Founded in 2011, Newquest is a dedicated secondary private equity platform and has offices in Singapore, Hong Kong, Beijing, and Mumbai. It provides strategic liquidity solutions to private equity asset owners, including private equity funds, financial institutions, corporations, hedge funds and family offices and currently manages four funds with capital commitments of over USD 2.4 billion.
TR Capital is also into secondary private equity investments in the Asia-Pacific region and provides liquidity to the owners of technology, consumer and healthcare companies through secondary direct and fund restructuring. Founded in 2007, it four funds with capital commitment of USD1 billion and has offices in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Mumbai.
