New Prezzo owner weighs pre-pack amid stand-off with landlords | Enterprise Information

The new owner of Prezzo is exploring irrespective of whether to put the Italian cafe chain through an insolvency procedure amid ongoing uncertainty about the industry’s reopening timetable.

Sky News has learnt that Cain Intercontinental, which purchased Prezzo in December, is in conversations with scores of landlords about foreseeable future rent preparations and the payment of arrears.

Town resources reported on Monday that Cain, which is doing work with advisers at FTI Consulting, was inspecting a variety of possibilities, dependent upon the progress of talks with restaurant-proprietors.

These possibilities involved a pre-pack administration or a company voluntary arrangement (CVA) as perfectly as a consensual restructuring, the insiders added.

Cain, a genuine estate trader which owns other leisure belongings these as Swingers, a chain of mad golf web-sites, is anticipated to choose on a plan for Prezzo in the coming months.

Prezzo is one of the UK’s biggest remaining large avenue cafe chains, with 180 stores and a workforce of about 2,500 people today.

It was set up for sale final summer season, because when it has spent hardly a handful of months in ordinary buying and selling circumstances.

Cain declared the buy of the enterprise in early December, when it trumpeted the takeover of Prezzo “as a heading concern”.

Jonathan Goldstein, Cain’s chief government, stated at the time: “We firmly think that solid hospitality and leisure makes with disciplined leadership will prosper in a write-up-COVID landscape.

“Prezzo has a crystal clear vision for how to finest serve its buyers and communities and I am self-assured that the combination of Cain’s operational and monetary know-how, the remarkable management staff led by Karen, and the commitment of Prezzo’s total workforce will help the small business to realise its total prospective.”

Uncertainty about a reopening date for hospitality organizations and the cure of rent arrears by professional landlords have put together to drive extra restaurant operators into urgent talks with collectors.

Previous calendar year noticed an unprecedented amount of distinguished chains, like the proprietors of Question Italian, Pizza Express, Leon and Wahaca, resorting to insolvency procedures.

Prezzo experienced been owned by TPG, the American buyout huge, along with a variety of other funds.

Most of the chain’s workers have been furloughed for substantially of the very last year underneath the Coronavirus Task Retention Plan.

The firm is operate by Karen Jones, its govt chairman, who is a single of the finest-acknowledged figures in Britain’s hospitality industry.

Cain and Prezzo declined to remark.