Mayfair-based investment firm, R Capital, and the former owner of Little Chef, has launched a bid for gourmet burger chain, Byron, according to Sky News.
R Capital, which sold Little Chef in 2013, specialises in taking over troubled companies and turning them around.
Prospective bidders have proposed to pay only £25m for the burger chain, which has over 70 sites, according to Sky's sources. The company changed hands for £100m in 2013, when it operated just over 30 sites.
Launched in 2007, Byron has been owned by Hutton Collins, an investment firm, for four years and employs 1,800 staff. It closed four under-performing restaurants earlier this year, and there are reportedly further sites which are bordering on closure.
In September, Byron announced that Simon Cope, a former Wagamama executive, was to become its new chief executive in September, working alongside chairman Dalton Philips, the former Morrison's chlef.