Husband and wife are back in charge of the Montezuma luxury chocolate brand they launched after a lead bid to buy it back from its private equity owner
A husband and wife team are back in charge of the luxury chocolate brand they launched after making an offer to buy it back from its private equity owner.
Stocked at high-end retailers such as Whole Foods and John Lewis, Montezuma’s was recently put up for sale by Scottish investment firm Inverleith, who wanted to sell it quickly.
A deal was closed last week to sell Montezuma’s to Paramount Retail Group. Paramount has appointed chocolate brand founders Helen and Simon Pattinson to lead the company five years after they paid out.
They founded Montezuma’s in 2000 and built a reputation selling exotic flavors like orange and geranium and hot pickle. Inverleith bought the brand in 2018, but it has been loss-making ever since.
The Pattinsons said they want to “restore the business to its former glory quickly.”
Upscale: Montezuma’s is available at high-end retailers such as Whole Foods and John Lewis
But Montezuma’s is the latest company owned by Inverleith to have changed hands in recent months as the company’s portfolio of high-end consumer brands has shrunk dramatically. The Mail on Sunday can reveal that Inverleith has pulled out of four of its seven companies in the past three months by selling them off or putting them into receivership.
Times have been tough for luxury retailers in the UK, including rivals such as Hotel Chocolat, as customers cut back in the wake of the pandemic. Inverleith oversaw the administration of online butcher Farmison and supermarket chain Planet Organic in April.
Farmison, which counted Fortnum & Mason among its clients, was bailed out by former Asda chief executive Andy Clarke. Planet Organic was bought out by a consortium led by founder Renee Elliott.
An Inverleith spokesperson said: ‘We are disappointed to be selling Montezumas, Farmison and Planet Organic at this time. However, the combination of the war in Ukraine, Covid and Brexit has created particularly challenging conditions for small food and beverage companies for both trading and financing.”