Our Structure

The AIH Group is a joint venture between the AIH Management Team led by Executive Chairman, Rodger Powell and Hawkesbridge Private Equity - a funds manager with over $100M under management. Hawkesbridge is in turn backed by significant institutional investors.

The AIH Group is now seeking to leverage the current investment with additional debt to expand via an acquisition strategy and take advantage of market place opportunities.

Our Vision

Hawkesbridge and AIH Group have identified that the restaurant sector of Australia’s hospitality industry is ripe for a consolidation move. The sector is dominated at the large end by successful but ageing entrepreneurs. These owners have little opportunity to exit their businesses and have not achieved the types of synergies and cost benefits realised in other sectors of the hospitality industry.

The past six years have seen remarkable consolidation across Australia’s tourism and hospitality industries. Hotels, motels and management companies in particular, have been absorbed by emerging international players. In the pub, gaming and entertainment sectors, Woolworths and Coles have dominated the consolidation moves while Macquarie, Babcock & Brown, MFS and GPT (followed by emerging players such as Eureka) have dominated the hotel sector. In the food service sector, Spotless has taken over a large share of the commercial catering businesses and Domino’s Pizza was the first major food service operator and franchisor to successfully list on the ASX. The same opportunity now exists in the restaurant and allied hospitality sector.

The restaurant sector in the Australian marketplace is a maturing industry comprised largely of individual business owner-operators with limited time and expertise to grow their business through marketing and cost reduction. This is in stark contrast to overseas markets where corporate chains and franchises are now well established.

The ABS identifies the Café and Restaurant industry in Australia growing at an annual average rate of 7.1%, with profit before tax growing at an annual average of 3.9%. The sale of liquor and beverages is growing at 8.3% and the sale of meals on premises at 5.4% per annum. Trends to increased frequency of dining out and appreciation for diverse food styles bode well for future growth. Importantly the Inbound (International) Tourism sector is forecast to grow at a rate of 6.4% per annum and the AIH Group is well positioned to capitalise on this growth.

Using the current business as a platform, the AIH Group is seeking to conduct an industry consolidation play via the acquisition of a number of strategic restaurant and hospitality assets to create Australia’s first diversified hospitality group.