Jamie: I had to put in £12m to stop my chain going bust
JAMIE Oliver had to plough £12million (€16.7million) of his own money into his restaurant chain last year, he has revealed.
The TV chef was filming when he received an unexpected phone call informing him the 43-strong Jamie’s Italian chain was deep in the red.
Hundreds of jobs were on the line, as well as millions of investors’ cash.
Oliver, who has a Jamie’s Italian restaurant in the Dundrum Shopping Centre, was given two hours to put in his own savings to stop the chain from going bust the next day. He agreed, but the meltdown nevertheless resulted in 12 out of 37 Jamie’s Italian UK sites being closed, causing hundreds of redundancies. The 43-year-old told Financial Times Magazine: ‘We had simply run out of cash. And we hadn’t expected it.’ He added: ‘I had two hours to put money in and save it or the whole thing would go to s*** that day or the next day. It was as bad as that and as dramatic as that.’
The father of five, thought be to worth around €170million, added: ‘I honestly don’t know [what happened]. We’re still trying to work it out, but I think that the senior management we had in place were trying to manage what they would call the perfect storm – rents, rates, the high street declining, food costs, Brexit, increase in the minimum wage. There was a lot going on.’
Oliver immediately put £7.5million into the chain, which was built up from one restaurant in Oxford in 2008. A further £5.2million of Oliver’s cash followed months later. This was topped up by £37million of loans from HSBC, and subsidies from other companies within the Jamie Oliver Group. Debts declared by the group last year amounted to £71.5million (€80mililon).
Oliver, who lives with wife Jools in a mansion in Highgate, north London, appointed controversial boss Paul Hunt, 55, who is married to his sister AnnaMarie, to run Jamie Oliver Ltd in 2014.
Earlier this year, Mr Hunt was criticised by staff for being a ‘bully’ and destroying Oliver’s empire. In his latest interview, Oliver continued: ‘I needed honesty. I needed clarity... [Paul’s] many things. But he’s honest, and he’s fair.
‘I absolutely trust him. His job was to come in and clean up.’