Turmoil for cafe chain

PATISSERIE Valerie chief executive Steve Francis has been fired just three months after he was brought in to turn around the cafe chain.

Francis, 57, has been placed on gardening leave by the firm’s new private equity owner Causeway Capital, who bought the firm out of administration last month. Chief commercial officer Rhys Iley, who joined from Starbucks, is also thought to have been dismissed. The pair were brought in under former chairman Luke Johnson after a £40m accounting black hole plunged the firm into turmoil. Despite ploughing £10m of his own money into propping up Patisserie Valerie, Johnson was forced to hand over the keys to administrators in January