Patisserie Valerie collapsed into administration yesterday, putting more than 3,000 jobs at risk, after an alleged £40m fraud that left it unable to pay back huge overdrafts.
The announcement brought to a close months of speculation about the future of the café chain, which revealed in October that it had discovered “significant, potentially fraudulent accounting irregularities”, prompting an investigation by the Serious Fraud Office.
Once a darling of the junior Aim market, the company rose to be valued at £511m at its peak last June. Its value is now destroyed, with Luke Johnson, its executive chairman, losing an estimated £189m personally.
KPMG, which will act as administrators, said 70 of the chain’s stores and concessions would close immediately, resulting in “a significant number of redundancies”.
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