The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is looking into Lightflower Acquisition’s £113m takeover of late-bar operator Urbium earlier this month.
Lightflower is an investment vehicle for private equity group Electra Partners, which once owned the Tom Cobleigh pub chain (now part of the Spirit Group), but currently has no other interests in UK bars.
A spokeswoman for the OFT said the organisation automatically looked into mergers and acquisitions if the acquired company had an annual turnover of £70m or more, or if the combined merged business took a 25% share (or more) of its market.
Urbium, which owns the Tiger Tiger brand and operates 36 bars, recorded a £75.3m turnover for the year to 31 December 2004.