More Pierre Victoire outlets close down
Beleaguered restaurant chain Pierre Victoire has suffered further set backs with the closure of more outlets following its move into receivership on Thursday.
‘We shut three on Friday and two today [Tuesday] and that’s roughly 70 jobs,’ Graham Martin, a partner at Kroll Bulcher Phillips, the insolvency practitioners appointed to the receivership, told AccountancyAge.com.
‘We looked at the operating performance over the weekend and we had to shut down a couple [of restaurants]. ‘Some had to be shut down because of outstanding rent,’ he added.
Of the remaining restaurants, Martin said: ‘We’re looking to find a buyer for two in Scotland and one in York in England. There is some interest to buy the remaining units, but it’s early days.’
It is difficult to pinpoint reasons for the company’s failure, but according to Martin, the changing catering market was one of the main causes.
‘I think that [when the company was founded in 1989] it provided new, cheap, quality lunches,’ he explained, ‘but the market has changed and there are a lot more community pubs that do cheap lunches now. The market has moved on.’
Martin added that it was too early to tell whether management was at fault.
This is the second time the Edinburgh-based firm has gone into receivership, as the company was saved from insolvency in 1998. Approximately 150 people risk losing their jobs if the company becomes insolvent.