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Yo Sushi acquires Canada's Bento Sushi for $100 million

November 20, 2017

Yo Sushi has acquired Bento Sushi, North America's second largest sushi brand, for CAN $100 million and Mayfair Equity Partners, who partnered with the Yo management team as part of a management buyout in 2015, facilitated the deal.

"We've successfully reinvigorated the business over the last two years to ensure the foundations are in place for long-term growth," Robin Rowland, CEO of Yo Sushi, said in a company press release. "This acquisition takes Yo into the next stage of its development, and creates the first global multi-channel Japanese food purveyor."

Bento, founded in Toronto in 1996, is the largest sushi brand in Canada with more than 600 locations. The business, which also supplies sushi to 1,700 partner sites, has achieved strong growth, delivering compound annual sales growth of 16 percent in the last three years, according to the release. Bento and its licensees employ more than 2,000 trained sushi chefs and serve more than 20 million sushi portions every year. 

Founder Ken Valvur and CEO Glenn Brown will join the board of Yo and become significant shareholders in the combined group.

"This partnership presents Bento with an incredible opportunity to grow its platform," Brown said. "Yo and Bento share a similar ethos and history, and we look forward to working with the Yo team and taking advantage of opportunities to develop both brands."

With Yo's international restaurant network across Europe, the Middle East and Australia, the combined business becomes one of the largest sushi companies outside Japan, providing an international, multi-brand, multi-channel offering, well placed to benefit from the continuing increase in consumer interest in healthy, provenance-rich foods, according to the release. The acquisition will create synergies and enable the continued growth of both businesses, particularly in the U.S. market. The combined businesses have recorded sales of approximately £175 million over the last 12 months.

The acquisition of Bento comes after two transformational years for Yo, in which Mayfair Equity Partners bought into the business, and Rowland returned to the role of CEO. Following a renewed focus on the brand, product and people, the business has seen like-for-like sales growth of +5 percent over the past 18 months. Eight sites opened in the UK this year, as well as the group's first sites in Manhattan, Paris and Sydney, according to the release.