Patisserie Valerie to Close 14 Stores

The Irish private equity firm that rescued Patisserie Valerie from administration is closing 14 more cafés, with up to 100 job losses expected, the media in the UK says.

Causeway Capital, which acquired the brand together with 96 branches from administrators at KPMG in February, said that it had taken the “difficult decision” to put up the shutters after a detailed review of the estate.

When it bought the business from the ashes of the quoted Patisserie Holdings group, KPMG had already closed 71 loss-making sites under the Patisserie Valerie and Druckers brands, with 920 redundancies.

The situation is complicated for Patisserie Valerie, as the former auditor has been placed under increased scrutiny after the industry watchdog called the quality of its work “unacceptable”. Grant Thornton was the worst performer in the Financial Reporting Council’s annual review of audits by the UK’s big accountants. The FRC said half of the eight Grant Thornton audits it inspected for 2017/18 required significant improvement.