Aberdeen group calls in receiver

The Aberdeen Steak Houses name could live on despite the company being put into administrative receivership last week.

Accountants BDO Stoy Hayward, acting as receiver of the group, which has 21 restaurants trading in London's West End, said it has had a lot of interest in the sites, including an offer from a unnamed venture capitalist who wanted to keep the name in business.

"At the end of the day it's been going for 30 years and there are only three or four sites that drag the rest of the group down," said administrator Shay Bannon.

Bannon added that several other parties including restaurant and pub groups had shown interest in individual sites, but so far there had been only one offer for the entire group. It is expected to fetch about £5m.

Aberdeen, which also owns Aberdeen Angus and American Café Burger restaurants, had sales of slightly more than £12m in the year to December 2001, down from £20.4m the previous year. During 2001, the group's secretive owner Ali-Salih sold several loss-making restaurants, raising about £4m. The group's last published results, for 2001, revealed a pre-tax loss of £3.1m compared with a profit of £332,000 a year earlier.

Bannon said that putting the company into administration might give Aberdeen Steak Houses enough "breathing space" to recover.

by Christina Golding