York Capital Acquires Houlihan’s

York Capital Management has agreed to buy the parent company of Houlihan's Restaurants. York purchased Houlihan's Restaurants, Inc. (HRI) from a subsidiary of Goldner, Hawn, Johnson & Morrison.

HRI is based in Leawood, Kansas. It owns and operates 31 Houlihan's restaurants, and franchises an additional 42 locations. HRI's brands also include five J. Gilbert's Wood-Fired Steaks locations, four Bristol Seafood Grill restaurants, six Devon Seafood Grill and Bar restaurants, and one chequers Seafood & Steak restaurant.

Michael Archer, a restaurant business veteran, is investing along with York. “I am excited to partner with York Capital and the company’s management team to continue developing HRI into one of the leading diversified restaurant companies in the industry,” Archer said in a statement. “We are extremely impressed with the company’s quality of food and service, high guest satisfaction, and value proposition and believe there is tremendous opportunity for growth. We plan to continue evolving our existing brands through continually refreshing the menu and meaningfully investing in our restaurant base. We are providing capital and adding to the talented management team in place to support growth through the development of new corporate owned and franchised restaurants across all of the existing concepts. In addition, we believe that HRI represents an attractive platform for growth through the development or acquisition of new concepts.”

York manages about $25 billion in assets and employs approximately 60 investment professionals and more than 200 employees, primarily in New York City, London and Hong Kong.

Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.