Gordon Ramsay was one of the many restaurant owners who fell victim to pandemic restaurant closures, business accounts published earlier this week show.
The celebrity chef – known for his legendary foul-mouthed outbursts on Channel 4 series Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares – was faced with a challenging year when it came to sales.
The numbers show a painful total loss of £5.1 million from August 2020 onward.
The 45-year-old established his company, Gordon Ramsay Holdings Limited, in 1997 in partnership with his father-in-law Chris Hutcheson.
The privately-owned group is one of the largest of its kind in the UK, with 18 eateries in London alone.
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These include Gordon’s eponymously-named Chelsea haunt – one of the Capital’s few three-Michelin-star restaurants.
The group also has 17 other eateries across the globe, and despite staggering pandemic losses, its website claims “further international openings” are in the works.
During the coronavirus crisis, Gordon Ramsay Holdings was given a handout of £3.2 million via the government’s furlough scheme to make sure staff were paid.
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Gordon even managed to secure a meeting with Chancellor Rishi Sunak earlier this year, which royally peeved off some smaller hospitality firms.
The accounts also demonstrated that the Greenock-born TV personality shelled out a whopping £5 million in “personal guarantees” to keep the business afloat through difficult times.
Andy Wenlock, Managing Director at Gordon Ramsay Holdings, said he is confident the business will weather the storm and continue growing owing to the restaurateur’s financial backing “from its bank and its major shareholder”.
(Image: Getty Images)
In the company’s director’s report, he said: “The Covid-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the group”.
“The group was able to support its staff through the government’s coronavirus job retention scheme, negotiate concessions from landlords, negotiate more flexible payment terms with key creditors as well as agreeing waivers and securing additional funding from its bank and its major shareholder”.
“The group reopened all sites from July 2020 and there was a period of solid trading until a further lockdown in November 2020”, added Andy.
Even in the face of troubles, Gordon employed 914 during 2020.
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
