December 18, 2008 14:06 ET

LRG Capital Group Launches LRG Capital Hospitality Fund to Capitalize on Investment Opportunities in the Hospitality Industry

The Fund Will Take Advantage of Discounted Pricing of Multi-Unit Food and Restaurant Businesses

LARKSPUR, CA--(Marketwire - December 18, 2008) - The LRG Capital Hospitality Group, a subsidiary of LRG Capital Group, a global investment, banking and advisory boutique, announces the launch of the LRG Capital Hospitality Fund. The LRG Capital Hospitality Fund was formed to capitalize on opportunities created by the current economic crisis. Amidst a climate of historically scarce capital resources and distressed businesses in the hospitality sector, the LRG Hospitality Fund offers a well-capitalized entity and a highly experienced team to take advantage of a broad set of hospitality investment opportunities. The Fund will identify and invest in early stage restaurants, adding value by restructuring existing concepts and providing needed management assistance and capital to foster expansion and franchising. The Fund will focus on multi-unit food and/or restaurant businesses that have an existing growth track record and operators that are interested in value-added partners.

The LRG Capital Hospitality Fund is co-managed by LRG Capital executives and two prominent restaurant professionals. Evan Kraus, Executive Vice President of LRG Capital Group and Lawrence Goldfarb, CEO of LRG Capital Group will partner with Shah Bahreyni, Managing Director of the LRG Capital Hospitality Group, and Aabi Shapoorian, both seasoned restaurateurs who have over 45 collective years of industry experience and have launched numerous restaurants and successfully turned others around.

"We are launching the LRG Capital Hospitality Fund in response to the demand from our clients to provide a vehicle for investing in the hospitality industry," said Lawrence Goldfarb, founder and CEO of LRG Capital Group and co-manager of the new Fund. "The current economic situation has presented great opportunities in the industry and Shah and Aabi's extensive track record has proven that they can turn undervalued and/or underperforming restaurant concepts into successful businesses."

Bahreyni and Shapoorian are skilled at assembling dynamic management teams, analyzing concepts and attracting some of the most talented chefs in the country. Both have worked for private and publicly held restaurant companies such as the American Restaurant Group/Spectrum Foods division, Constellation Concepts, Kimpton Group and The Puccini Group to name a few. Bahreyni and Shapoorian are currently partners at the highly acclaimed Boca Steak & Seafood Restaurant with two-time, four-star chef George Morrone.

About LRG Capital Group

LRG Capital Group (www.lrgcapital.com) is a global investment, banking and advisory boutique that focuses on public and private companies in the technology, life sciences, hospitality, real estate and entertainment sectors. Founded by Lawrence Goldfarb, the firm provides capital via private equity, commercial loans and structured debt financing, and guides and advises clients on mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance and other strategic alternatives. Based in San Francisco with offices in New York, LRG Capital excels at relationship-focused guidance and financing.

This release contains forward-looking statements relating to the business and financial outlook of LRG Capital Hospitality Fund that are based on our current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections and are not guarantees of future performance. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed in these forward-looking statements, and you should not place undue reliance on any such statements. A number of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements contained in this release. Such factors include those described in the Risk Factors sections of the offering documents of LRG Capital Hospitality Fund. Forward-looking statements in this document speak only as of the date on which such statements were made, and we undertake no obligation to update any such statements that may become untrue because of subsequent events. We claim the safe harbor protection for forward-looking statements contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.