Vincent Tchenguiz, brother of prominent hospitality investor Robert Tchenguiz, has emerged as a potential bidder for troubled motorway restaurant chain Little Chef.

According to today’s Daily Telegraph newspaper Little Chef’s current owners, R Capital, have been in talks with Tchenguiz’s investment vehicle, Consensus Business Group, about a £20m to £25m takeover deal.

Little Chef was bought out of administration by R Capital back in January.

It has recently been linked with Italian motorway service company Autogrill, owned by the Benetton family.

The chain employs 3,200 people and operates 196 restaurants.

It fell on bad times when it failed to meet rent payments under the ownership of the Peoples Restaurant Group.

By Christopher Walton

E-mail your comments to Christopher Walton here.