Patisserie Valerie to close further 14 sites
Causeway Capital Partners, which bought 96 of the chains sites out of administration in February, today (10 July) confirmed it was shutting several smaller locations.
“The difficult decision was reached following a detailed review of the size, trading performance and location of each store over the past five months,” Causeway says in a statement.
“These difficult measures will enable [the company] to better focus its investment programme on improving the quality of its patisseries over the coming months."
A list of the sites closing has not been released but several local news reports indicate locations in Lincoln, Chichester and Leicester have recently shut.
Causeway says the remaining 75 cafes represent Patisserie Valerie’s “larger, best performing” sites, where it will be focusing on improving its in-store offer. Last week the chain launched a summer menu with reworked recipes and the return of butter in its puff pastry.
Patisserie Valerie was trading from around 150 sites when it entered administration in January, after which 52 loss-making concessions and cafes were closed.
Administrators KPMG were called in after the company was unable to renew its bank facilities following the discovery of a multi-million-pound black hole in its accounts.
Last month five more people were arrested and questioned by fraud police investigating the collapse of the chain.
