Wed 9th Oct 2013 - Eddy Passey to join board of Red Hot World Buffet Eddy Passey to join Red Hot World Buffet as board director: Eddy Passey, who is group operations director at pan-European hostel provider Beds and Bars, is to leave the company to become a board director at Red Hot World Buffet, the buffet chain that saw investment from Luke Johnson’s Risk Capital earlier this year. It is understood that Passey is likely to join Red Hot World Buffet full-time before Christmas. James Horler, who is interim chief executive at Red Hot World Buffet, told Propel: “We are strengthening the management team to get ready for expansion - Eddy will be joining Red Hot World Buffet as a board director.” Passey, who has worked at Beds and Bars for 11 years, said: “I’m very excited by the opportunity to work with James and Risk Capital.” It is understood that Passey will oversee operations at the company reporting into Horler. Luke Johnson told Propel in August that Risk Capital had invested in Red Hot World Buffet because it was attractive for a number of key reasons; it has a low single digit rent to turnover ratio, holds a leadership role within the buffet segment in terms of quality - and the offer had broad appeal within the family market. He also argued that the size of Red Hot’s restaurants offers major economies of scale that can be further maximised going forward. Johnson said: “I think children and families like the help yourself and fixed price meal aspects of Red Hot World Buffet. It also has a very attractive rent roll – as low as any restaurant group of a similar size.” Johnson said that the focus in the first year would be on opening a site in the Midlands and retro-fitting three or four of the existing sites to apply some of the learnings of the latest opening in Nottingham Cornerhouse to earlier sites like Milton Keynes. Sites taking an average of £4m per year are subject to a “lot of wear and tear”, Johnson said. The medium term plan will be to add one new site per year for the next three years. Johnson added: “We’d like to open at least one site per year - they’re not cheap to open at upwards of £1.5m per site. This is one of the areas – property – where we feel we might be able to help.”