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Will Wright and Mark Orton from KPMG’s Restructuring practice were appointed yesterday (Tuesday May 21) as joint administrators to the Jamie Oliver Restaurant Group Limited, and its subsidiaries Jamie’s Italian Limited, Jamie’s Italian Holdings Limited, One New Change Limited and Fifteen Restaurant Limited.
The Group employs approximately 1,300 staff across 25 restaurants across the UK, including 22 under the Jamie’s Italian brand, in addition to Jamie Oliver’s Diner at Gatwick Airport, Barbecoa and Fifteen London.
In a statement, KPMG said: ‘The Group had recently undertaken a process to secure additional investment into the business and, since the beginning of this year, Jamie Oliver has made available additional funds of £4 million to support the fundraising. However, with no suitable investment forthcoming and in light of the very difficult current trading environment, the directors resolved to appoint administrators.’
Following KPMG’s appointment, all but three of the Group’s 25 eateries have closed. Both Jamie’s Italian restaurants and Jamie Oliver’s Diner at Gatwick Airport will continue to trade in the short term while the joint administrators explore options for the site. These closures will result in approximately 1,000 redundancies. Jamie Oliver Holdings has made arrangements to ensure all restaurant staff salaries will be paid up to the date of the administrators’ appointment.
The international restaurants trading as Jamie’s Italian, Jamie’s Pizzeria and Jamie’s Deli will continue to trade as normal and are not affected by the administration of the UK restaurant business.
Will Wright, partner at KPMG and joint administrator, said: “The current trading environment for companies across the casual dining sector is as tough as I’ve ever seen. The directors at Jamie Oliver Restaurant Group have worked tirelessly to stabilise the business against a backdrop of rising costs and brittle consumer confidence. However, after a sales process which sought to bring new investment into the business proved unsuccessful, the team took the incredibly difficult decision to appoint administrators.”
He continued: “Unfortunately, with insufficient funds available to be able to trade the business in administration, all but the Gatwick airport restaurants have now closed. Our priority in the coming hours and days is to work with those employees who have been made redundant, providing any support and assistance they need.”
Jamie Oliver’s Italian restaurant in Liverpool
