Politicians' haunt feels heat after tax bill

Begbies Traynor and BDO Stoy Hayward have been appointed to the Cinnamon
Club, one of London’s foremost Indian dining venues and a favourite haunt of
Westminster politicians after it announced it was restructuring its finances due
to an outstanding £1m tax bill.

Begbies Traynor will carry out restructuring work, while BDO will take charge
of the company’s accounts. The corporate restructuring firm recently helped the
company to formulate a balance sheet reshuffle under a proposed Company
Voluntary Arrangement.

A spokesman for the restaurant said that BDO would look to ‘tighten things up
where needs be’, while Begbies had carried the CVA and that the restaurant
company would make several ‘step payments’ to the Revenue. He refused to comment
on how many payments would be made and the date by when these would be made.

In statement the company said this had allowed Indian Restaurants Limited
(trading as The Cinnamon Club) to ‘address the historic debt through staged
payments while ensuring the restaurant can continue to trade as usual and to the
very high standards for which it is famed’.

In January of this year the board appointed a new management team led by
Rohit Chugh and executive chef Vivek Singh. Founder Iqbal Wahhab and former
managing director John Turner are no longer involved in the operations of the
company and have moved on to work on projects of their own.

Begbies will have to resolve the issue of historic debts, in particular
around £1m relating to PAYE and VAT, which accrued in the first few years of
trading.

The company said the restructuring would have ‘no impact’ on day-to-day
operations of the business with staffing levels and payments to trade suppliers
‘assured’ given the considerable strength of current trading revenues.

The business was opened in April 2001 and has won numerous awards. The
company said it had enjoyed ‘record numbers’ in 2005 with the business on track
to break the £5m annual turnover mark for the first time.