Turtle Bay founder Ajith Jayawickrema, who moved to the UK from Sri Lanka at the age of 15, has revealed how singer Leona Lewis unknowingly inspired him to launch his highly successful Caribbean restaurant chain. ‘My girls were young and we were watching X Factor – and a girl called Leona Lewis won it,’ says
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Piper has taken a significant stake in Turtle Bay, the fast growing Caribbean restaurant group. Turtle Bay is the brainchild of Aj Jaya-Wickrema, who co-founded Las Iguanas, a previous Piper investment. Piper helped Las Iguanas grow from a regional operator of four restaurants into Britain’s market leading Latin American chain, delivering a 6x multiple on
I’m delighted to be working with the Piper team. Their deep-rooted experience and understanding of the sector has meant we have been able to complete this deal in a very tight time frame. For me, this was hugely important in ensuring the deal didn’t distract management from our focus on building Turtle Bay into a successful national brand.