Gail’s Bakery grew sales 32% in the last financial year ahead of a rumoured sale of the business in 2025.
Grain Topco – the owner of Gail’s parent company Bread Holdings – said bakery sales hit £179.1m last year as it opened almost two new stores a month, according to its latest accounts for the year to 29 February.
According to reports this week, Bread Holdings has recently appointed Goldman Sachs to run an auction of Gail’s next year that could lead to the partial or full exit of the existing backers.
Analysts speculated that the company could be worth as much as £500m, according to Sky News.
Gail’s has grown to be a fixture of London’s wealthier high streets, triggering accusations that its presence is fuelling a homogenisation. Residents in Walthamstow in London staged a protest earlier this year against a new Gail’s outlet with a petition to “safeguard the soul of our beloved neighbourhood”.
“We understand the concern around chains, but our view is that a healthy high street is one with a diversity of quality offers, each delivering their best”, Gail’s chief executive Tom Molnar told The Grocer at the time.
“High streets evolve over time and we open our small bakeries often in closed banks or stranded restaurants. All of our bakeries exist in areas where the choices are wide and growing – we should be celebrating the improvement in our food landscapes”.
Gail’s opened 21 new stores in the year to February 2024, with another 35 due to be opened this year.
The first Gail’s café opened in Hampstead in 2005. In 2021, Bain Capital acquired a majority stake in the business at a valuation of £200m and since then, sales have tripled. In the last full year before the sale, Bread Holdings’ revenue was just £57.1m.
Gail’s products have been sold in major supermarkets since 2010 and are now available in Waitrose and Ocado. In May this year, Waitrose opened its first Gail’s ‘store within a store’ site having first partnered with the bakery in November 2022 to launch three concessions.
Gail’s is the fastest-growing and most profitable part of Grain Topco, which saw total revenues grow 28% to £231.8m last year. This includes its wholesale business which hit £83.7m in sales.
The group made a pre-tax loss of £7.4m last year, down from £12.9m the year before. Gail’s is the more profitable part of the group.
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