Primary Recommendation

La Tasca - Largest chain of Spanish restaurants

March 2005

Investing in shares may lose you all or some of your money. Past performance is no indication of future performance. Some of the shares recommended here may be small company shares, which can be relatively illiquid and hard to trade and this makes such shares more risky than other investments.

The standout feature of the restaurant sector is that most of the well known names, such as Pizza Express and Ask Central, have succumbed to bids from venture capitalists. Five years ago, those brands were expanding rapidly and became household names but their cash generating capabilities meant that when their growth slowed, they were still attractive targets for the VCs to buy and then load up with debt to enhance their returns. Now the quoted sector still has two roll-out specialists, Prezzo and Domino's Pizza. We would not want to push the comparison with those and La Tasca, which operates Spanish tapas bars, too far. Prezzo shares are tightly held by its founders and Domino's is a franchise operation, but they both set a wonde ...

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Market Comment - March

Cranswick - Significant acquisition of Perkins Chilled Foods

La Tasca - 200p a share bid; gain 50.4% (May 2007)

La Tasca - Attracts two bidders (April 2007)

La Tasca - Trading strongly over Christmas (January 2007)

La Tasca - Results expected 12 December (December 2006)

La Tasca - Trade disrupted by World Cup (August 2006)

La Tasca (May 2006)

La Tasca - Opening programme ahead of target (January 2006)

La Tasca (October 2005)

La Tasca - Maiden results (August 2005)

With small companies there is an above average degree of risk compared to buying blue chips. Please be aware that we have not assessed the suitability of any of these investments for you. The newsletter simply states a personal view and diarises the editor’s investment decisions. Please speak to your stockbroker or other qualified individual to ascertain whether any of these companies mentioned would form useful additions to your own portfolios. Past performance is no indication of future success.

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