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Ramsay's F-Word: Finances



Nina de Roy Source: news.sky.com


After spending too much time telling other people how to run their restaurants on telly, seasoned chef Gordon Ramsay may now be wishing he had spent more time in his own 'Hell's Kitchen.'
The latest filings with Companies House show that profit at Gordon Ramsay Holdings dropped 87% last year to just £383,325.
Compare that with a buoyant £3.05mn this time a year ago and you can see how much the firm has suffered from its expanding waistline at a time when rivals were tightening their belts.
Just last month Ramsay defied the credit crunch saying he would open a further two restaurants in Italy, bringing the company’s eateries to 27 in total.
Ramsay’s determination to continue his empire building came despite his business owing £7mn to the taxman and facing a recall on its multi million-pound loan with Royal Bank of Scotland.
The latest figures reveal that Gordon Ramsay Holdings’ debt has more than doubled to just under £9.5mn, leaving the group with annual interest payments of £545,563 versus £279,485 a year earlier.
The three-star Michelin chef has already had to close restaurants in Hollywood, Prague and Paris as companies slash their entertainment budgets and diners steer clear of his pricey grub.
Here in London territorial spats with former protégés have also fanned the flames and taken a bite out of Ramsay’s revenues.
During the boom times of 2007-2008, Ramsay was opening one restaurant a month.
But he has since had to close four of his venues in the capital, including la Noisette, which traded for less than two years.
His Knightsbridge venue Petrus has been closed since September of last year and will now relocate to a new site, after Ramsay fell out with head chef Marcus Waering.
I had the pleasure of dining at Petrus shortly before the two went their separate ways and Waering told me that Ramsay made frequent visits to all of his restaurants, time permitting, because he had many filming commitments.
Six months later he was quoted in Waitrose Food Illustrated as saying ‘If I never speak to that guy again in my life, it wouldn’t bother me one bit.’
In fact, television has been something of a double-edged sword for the 42 year-old, whose celebrity status has landed him lucrative filming deals but kept him away from his kitchens.
Richard Harden is co-author of the esteemed Harden’s restaurant guide. He told Sky News that unless Ramsay focussed on his London restaurants it could be the end of an era.
'It's an absurd, arrogant myth that you can satisfy the time requirements of being a major media celebrity as well as building a major international restaurant group.'
Ramsay’s ‘foul mouthed’ banter has made him famous but landed him in hot water more than once, most recently in Australia when he insulted a well-known show host.
The father of four was also reported to have had an extra-marital affair.
Such factors dented Ramsay’s popularity at a time when he was branching into the more affordable end of the market, opening gastro pubs and fronting Gordon's gin.
Yet, the extra cash from commercials and hit shows has provided a cushion for Ramsay's finances at a time when fellow celebrity chefs have gone out of business, like Anthony Worrall Thompson.
Ramsay and his father-in-law Chris Hutcheson have poured £5mn into the business to shore up its finances and now say that this year has got off to a ‘robust’ start.
One can only imagine how many expletives Ramsay must have uttered as he signed off on his company's latest yearly accounts.
But the future of Gordon Ramsay Holdings depends of whether its eponymous founder has learnt that you can’t always have your cake and eat it.