BUYOUT BOSS ADMITS FAULT OVER BOOM AND BUST


THE private equity owner of TGI Fridays has admitted his industry was at fault for the over-expansion of the restaurant sector which led to huge job losses in the pandemic.

Gavin Manson, finance chief of Electra, said private equity ‘played a significant part’ in a ‘very real oversupply situation’. In the 2010s private equity piled into the UK restaurant sector backing chains such as Cafe Rouge, Byron, Leon and Pizza Express with debt-fuelled plans for rapid expansion.

The rush put the sector in crisis mode even before the pandemic struck, with low-paid staff taking the brunt of restructuring. Investors were relatively unscathed, leading MPs to damn the ‘broken and exploitative business model’.

Manson said: ‘The oversupply situation was very real, and private equity played a significant part in that. It was growing very rapidly, and private equity piled in and opened a lot of restaurants.

‘I don’t think it was particularly private equity’s fault that a lot of people lost their jobs. The market reached a situation where the growth in demand slowed while the growth of supply kept on going. The pandemic has right-sized that.’

Last year TGI Fridays made 200 UK staff redundant, out of 4,800, and has boomed since reopening. Electra, which has owned TGI Fridays since 2014, plans to demerge it from its online shoe business, Hotter, and float it this year.

© Daily Mail

Related Businesses
    - - Customer
    Copyright © 2024 by CreditRiskMonitor.com (Ticker: CRMZ®). All rights reserved.  You are not permitted to use this report or the information contained herein for any purpose not expressly permitted by CreditRiskMonitor.com, Inc. Except as expressly permitted by CreditRiskMonitor.com, Inc., you are not permitted, in whole or in part, to copy, alter, correct, adapt, translate, enhance, lease, sell, sublicense, assign, distribute, publish, otherwise make available to any third party, or prepare derivative works or improvements of this report or any of the information contained therein. You are not permitted to reverse engineer, disassemble, decompile, decode, or adapt the software, algorithms or other processes used to prepare this report, or otherwise attempt to derive or gain access to the source code of same. You agree not to remove, alter, obscure, combine or otherwise change any disclaimers, trademarks, copyrights, other intellectual property rights, proprietary rights, or other symbols, notices, marks, or serial numbers on or relating to any copy of the report or on marketing or other materials that CreditRiskMonitor.com, Inc. may provide to you. You will not use this report in any manner or for any purpose that infringes, misappropriates, or otherwise violates any right of any party, or that violates any applicable law.  
    The FRISK® scores, agency ratings, credit limit recommendations and other scores, analysis and commentary are opinions of CreditRiskMonitor.com, Inc. and/or its suppliers, not statements of fact, and should be one of several factors in making credit decisions.  Any reliance you place on the information in this report is strictly at your own risk. Except as expressly provided by CreditRiskMonitor.com, Inc., no warranties or representations of any type, including without limitation of results to be obtained, merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose, are made concerning any part of CreditRiskMonitor.com, Inc.’s service, including without limitation the FRISK® scores.  The information published above has been obtained from sources CreditRiskMonitor considers to be reliable.  CreditRiskMonitor.com, Inc. and its third-party suppliers do not guarantee or validate the accuracy and completeness of the information provided in this report, the underlying information input to create the FRISK® scores, and specifically do not assume responsibility for not reporting any information omitted or withheld.  By using this website, you accept the Terms of Use Agreement. 
    Contact Us: 845.230.3000
    Fundamental financial data concerning public companies may be provided by Refinitiv (click for restrictions)
    Friday, April 19, 2024