In late March, SBE and Sam Nazarian announced that they would be merging with Hakkasan to create a mega-nightclub-restaurant-hotel company that would take over the hospitality world. Sam Nazarian was so excited about it, he even started a PR tour, saying the “merger is expected to close within 60 days.”
It’s now the end of May, and there has been no merger yet.
Making this even stranger in our opinion, is that we are told by a source within the company that when CEO Neil Moffitt jumped ship in April, right after the merger announcement, he did it without signing the accounting books.
Whatever this means, it seems it may have had an effect on the company’s merger, because they are also now 60 days overdue filing the accounts with the UK Government as required by law.
While this probably isn’t anything but a hiccup in the proposed merger, let’s remember that Nazarian is a GENIUS when it comes to nightlife and after the issues with his Vegas Hotel, is very, very careful about what he gets into. And, for the rest of us, it does add a little bit more mystery into the finances of Hakkasan.
