The billionaire brothers behind the petrol station business EG Group have snapped up the fast food chain Leon Restaurants for £100m, just months after acquiring supermarket chain Asda. EG Group, run by Mohsin Issa and Zuber Issa, has bought the 70-strong restaurant chain, which was founded in London in 2004 by John Vincent, its chief executive, Henry Dimbleby, Boris Johnson’s national food tsar, and the chef Allegra McEvedy, both of whom left the business a few years later. The deal will lead to payouts for the trio: Vincent, who is leaving, stands to make £15m from his 15% holding in Leon, which is named after his father, while other private shareholders, including the other two founders, hold 15% between them. Leon, which employs 700 people, was majority-owned by two private equity firms, Active Partners and Spice Private Equity, with stakes of 30% and 40% respectively. Vincent and Dimbleby, advocates of healthy eating, coined the concept of “naturally fast food” for Leon, and also developed a school food plan for the government in 2013. They met at the management consultancy Bain and Company, where they bonded over a “dislike of pre-made sandwiches served from neon-lit chiller cabinets,” according to the Leon website. Last July, Dimbleby’s report on a new national food strategy, commissioned by the government, recommended that up to 1.5 million more children in England should get free school meals to help tackle a growing crisis of food poverty and unhealthy eating. The Issa brothers, who leased their first petrol station in 1999 and now have more than 6,000 across 10 countries, have been on a buying spree, adding more food businesses to their portfolio. They agreed to acquire Asda for £6.8bn last October, although the takeover still needs to be approved by the competition watchdog, with a decision due on Tuesday, and have bid for Caffè Nero. They had even hoped to buy the fashion chain Topshop. In January, EG recruited the former Marks & Spencer boss Stuart Rose as chair, to boost its corporate credentials at a time of rapid expansion, which has landed the company with more than £7bn of debt. In October, the group’s auditors, Deloitte, resigned, fuelling concerns about EG’s governance and management. Leon has 42 company-owned restaurants in London and other large cities in the UK, as well as 29 sites run by franchisees at transport hubs, mainly airports and railway stations, across the UK, the Netherlands, Ireland, Norway, Spain and Switzerland. Only six outlets are in service stations, a number that is set to rise under Leon’s new owners. EG plans to open around 20 Leon sites a year from 2022, including a number of drive-throughs. Blackburn-based EG, which is 50/50 owned by the Issa brothers and the private equity group TDR, already runs more than 700 food outlets in the UK and Ireland. As franchise operators, the Issas have been installing Starbucks, KFC, Burger King, Greggs, Cinnabon and Subway branches at their forecourts, and opened the UK’s first Starbucks drive-through in 2010. They said: “Leon is a fantastic brand that we have long admired.” EG has committed to keeping on Leon’s staff and management team, and will also hold on to its headquarters in Copperfield Street, London, for at least 12 months. Vincent said: “In some ways this is a sad day for me, to part company with the business I founded 17 years ago in Carnaby Street.” He said he had got to know the Issa brothers over the years, and was “confident under the new ownership, the brand will flourish and have even greater appeal to a broader customer base, especially outside of London”. EG is also thought to be closing in on Caffè Nero, after buying up some of the struggling coffee chain’s debts. It has bought around £140m worth of loans from Swiss private equity firm Partners Group via the investment bank Morgan Stanley, the Sunday Telegraph first reported. If Caffè Nero defaults on its debts, EG would be in a good position to take control. The chain also has £145m of senior bank debt that falls due next year. Partners is understood to have written to Caffè Nero boss Gerry Ford, expressing concerns over its finances, including whether the coffee shop chain, which has not filed accounts almost 11 months after its year-end, can continue as a going concern. However, Caffè Nero said: “We have had a successful winter and spring trading and are generating positive cash-flow and are ahead of forecast for the last five months. We are forecasting no covenant issues in our projections over the next 12 months and we look forward to an even brighter future post 17 May 17 when we open up our cafes fully to the public.” EG’s bid for the 800-strong coffee shop chain was rejected in November and Caffè Nero filed instead for a company voluntary arrangement, a form of insolvency that allows retailers to cut rents and shut outlets. The CVA was passed with backing from most Caffè Nero landlords, but nine, mostly smaller landlords, were unhappy and filed a legal challenge funded by EG. Eight are understood to have settled with Caffè Nero but one still wants to go to court. EG declined to comment.