Patisserie Valerie chain saved by Irish investors
ADMINISTRATORS for troubled café and sandwich shop group Patisserie Holdings have sold off three parts of the company in deals worth £15.5 million.
KPMG has completed a deal for its coffee shop chain Patisserie Valerie to Dublin-based private equity investor Causeway Capital, preserving the future of 96 cafés and around 2,000 jobs.
Willenhall-based AF Blakemore, the company behind the Spar convenience stores, has bought out the Philpotts chain of 21 sandwich shops including all of its sites in Birmingham, saving 210 roles.
The two deals are worth £13 million.
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Lon- don-based café chain Department of Coffee & Social Affairs which has acquired four Baker & Spice bakeries in the capital for £2.5 million, saving 68 jobs. A fifth site in Oxford will close with the loss of ten roles.
The remaining assets, which were not included in the three transactions, would be realised during the administrations, Patisserie Holdings said in an update to the stock exchange.
The Birmingham-based group is expected to be removed from the London Stock Exchange’s AIM listing on February 25.
AF Blakemore’s chairman Peter Blakemore said: “It was important to find a deal that enabled us to keep the 21 Philpotts stores open and secure the future for employees.
“Bringing Philpotts under AF Blakemore ownership means we can offer even more to UK consumers. Our experience and knowledge of providing fantastic food options to the public through our Spar and food service divisions means we can help to develop the existing brand while taking elements of the Philpotts offer into our wider business.”
Patisserie Holdings, which is headquartered in Hall Green, has been battling a string of negative headlines after first announcing last October that it had discovered financial irregularities in its accounts.
Patisserie Holdings was rescued by its chairman, serial entrepreneur Luke Johnson, who injected £20 million of his own wealth into the company shortly afterwards.
But last month the firm said it was unable to renew its bank loans with HSBC and Barclays and it did not have sufficient funding to continue trading, leaving it with no option but to appoint KPMG as administrator.
The financial services firm closed 70 stores with the loss of 920 redundancies.
Sports Direct owner Mike Ashley submitted a bid for the chain, but later withdrew it, complaining that he had been locked out of the process by KPMG.