If a chef can't support what comes out of his kitchens, who can?
I’ve got nothing against celebrity chefs. In fact, Matt Tebbut can come and cook for me anytime. But although I’m more of a Market Kitchen girl than a Ready Steady Cook fan, I’ve got nothing against Antony Worrall Thompson – except that he’s an opponent of the smoking ban and once fancied himself as the next Conservative MP for Henley that is.
Today Wozza was in the news claiming to be a victim of the credit crunch, a ‘small’ businessman unfairly put out of business by the wicked banks. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m even less of a fan on the banks than of Ready, Steady, Cook, but they do still have the right to try to make some profits and pay the rest of us back.
So when I heard AWT crying foul on the radio this morning, my sympathies were with him. Then I heard him on television and read his cries all over the web today, and I began to worry if he might protest too much. He said that he needed £200,000 to keep all his six restaurants going and believed his business was ‘reasonably sound’ and would have survived if Lloyds had given him extra time. However Lloyds had chosen not to extend his overdraft, unless the chef had agreed to put his £1.5 million riverside home up as security. AWT had refused, claiming the bank wanted ’horrendous personal guarantees that I wasn’t prepared to do‘ . AWT said, I am getting to an age where I can’t afford to lose my house.’
Apparently AWT then paid £250,000 of his own money to buy back half the business from the administrators, presumably losing the associated debts in the meantime. So he was prepared to spend more than he wanted for the extended overdraft in buying out the profitable parts of the business, but was not so keen on keeping all the businesses and certainly not in taking the risk. So keen was AWT on making usre his staff were looked after that he put he business into administration on payday – before anyone had been paid.
So AWT wasn’t prepared to take the ‘horrendous’ risk of using his home as security for his business. If it is such a horrendous risk, why should Lloyds take on that risk, particularly since the taxpayers are now the main shareholders in the bank? It seems to me that the losers here are the suppliers and staff of the original businesses. Hmm …
Related posts:
- Vince makes sense – again!
- Conservative council broke rules to lose £27 million in Icelandic banks
- Vote Clegg: get Maggie’s support?
Comments
Leave a Reply:
