Little Chef chain of motorside restaurants was sold to Kuwaiti-owned Kout Food Group for £15m. (Little Chef)
Little Chef chain of motorside restaurants was sold to Kuwaiti-owned Kout Food Group for £15m (Little Chef)

The Little Chef restaurant chain has been sold to the UK arm of Kout Food Group, which runs more than 40 Burger King and KFC outlets in the UK as well as the Maison Blanc brand.

Little Chef was put up for sale in April, six years after it was rescued from administration. The group employs 1,100 staff and serves more than 6 million customers a year.

Celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal was brought in during 2009 to revamp its menu, which was dominated by fried breakfasts and burgers. Despite this, the company still reported losses in 2012.

But the chain had been struggling for some time to compete with the other fast food chains and supermarkets that were increasingly occupying road-side service stations.

KFGR-UK takes over the group, well known for its Fat Charlie logo, that has cut its 400 outlets to 83 sites beside A-roads around the UK. All of which are believed to be profitable.

The seller, venture capital group RCapital's CEO Jamie Constable, told Sky News: "Since we put Little Chef up for sale people have asked us, why sell the business?

"The answer is very simple. We are specialists in reversing the fortunes of businesses with significant financial and operational problems.

"We turn businesses around, we rebuild and fix them, that's our business.

"When we bought the chain, it needed huge changes to revive the business and bring it back to profitability.

"Having owned Little Chef for a long time it feels like we are selling part of ourselves.

"But we take comfort from the fact that the new owners will take the brand to the next stage."

KFGR-UK said it had ambitious plans for the company breakfast, expecting to profit from the travel and dining market estimated at £3 billion in the UK.

Fadwa Al Homaizi, Chairman of Kout Food Group Restaurants UK, said: "KFGR-UK has exciting plans to revitalise the Little Chef brand.

"Little Chef will benefit from a process of brand renewal in keeping with current trends, supported by traditional British values."

Kout are expected to keep the name Little Chef.