CMS in London has successfully advised Electra Partners, on the acquisition of The Original Bowling Company (“TOBC”) for a total consideration of £91 million. Debt facilities for the transaction have been provided by GE, Barclays and Lloyds.

TOBC is the UK’s largest ten-pin bowling business with 43 bowling centres operating under the Hollywood Bowl (29 sites) and AMF (14 sites) brands. It specialises in large, high quality bowling centres, predominantly located in leisure or retail parks, which offer complete family entertainment with restaurants, licenced bars, and state-of-the-art family games arcades. The acquisition of TOBC brings Electra Partners’ total new investment to over £300 million since September 2013. 

The team was led by Jason Zemmel and Martin Treagus with particular assistance from Victoria Stimson and Electra Sorba. The team also included Angela Clump, Hayley Waddington and Richard Taylor (Corporate), Peter Crichton, Tom Hughes and Munal Mehta (Banking), Aaron Fairhurst and Allie Tuck (Tax) and Louise Mead and Sarah Allonby (Real Estate).

Jason Zemmel who led the transaction, commented: “We were delighted to work with Electra Partners on this exciting transaction. Our experienced team of private equity lawyers were able to work with the Electra team to deliver the transaction in a short time frame and in accordance with client expectations. Our team goes from strength to strength and as the private equity market develops and returns to full capacity our team are ideally placed to provide the highest standard of legal advice to our long standing and new clients”.