Concepts & Cuisine goes into administration

Concepts & Cuisine, parent company of the Shimla Pinks chain of upmarket Indian restaurants, has been placed in administration after racking up huge losses.

But the restaurants, which are owned by separate subsidiary companies, are continuing to operate as normal and have not been put up for sale.

Joint administrator Chris Garwood, of Carrick Read Insolvency, said Concepts & Cuisine had incurred "fairly horrific trading losses" of £1.5m in the period to 31 January 1999, when it started to expand nationwide.

He said: "They spent too much money on opening new restaurants. They geared themselves up for running a national chain before they had a national chain and they had over-extravagant ideas too early.

"Concepts has now changed round the way it does things. It doesn't operate its own restaurants any more: they are either managed for it or they are franchises. The day-to-day operations are totally unaffected by the administration order. The restaurants are running quite happily. Suppliers are unaffected and customers are unaffected."

The administration order, Garwood said, was needed to provide protection from creditors while the company's historic liabilities were sorted out. The intention is that all creditors will be paid off in full. A creditors' meeting must be held before 7 August.

He added: "The money is coming in faster than it's going out, but it wasn't coming in fast enough to keep the creditors happy."

There are four managed Shimla Pinks - in Birmingham, Solihull, Nottingham and Oxford. The Killermont Polo Club restaurant in Glasgow is also part of the group. The Shimla Pinks restaurants in Manchster and London are run by franchisees.

by David Shrimpton david.shrimpton@rbi.co.uk