Valentina Fine Foods pre-pack administration left behind £1.1m debts
Valentina Fine Foods, which went into administration in October, owed £1.1m to creditors, it has emerged.
The business and assets of Valentina Fine Foods was bought by Gazzano and Son for £10,800 in a pre-pack arrangement, leaving behind considerable debts, a statement of proposals by administrator Begbies Traynor has revealed.
The administrator also acknowledged the connection between Valentina Fine Foods director Bruno Zuccola and the sole director of Gazzano and Son, Gabriella Valentina Croci, who has worked as a senior operations manager at Valentina Fine Foods.
The £1.1m is largely owed to finance companies, including £271,710 to Asset Advantage, £216,461 to Claratus Commercial Finance and £147,731 to Arke Finance.
Begbies Traynor estimated that there would be no funds available for unsecured creditors.
Valentina Fine Foods was founded by entrepreneur Bruno Zoccola in 1991. It began with a delicatessen in East Sheen in Surrey and grew to eight sites in the south east, including the flagship Shad Thames restaurant and delicatessen, which opened in 2015.
When the business entered administration in October 2017, four of its eight sites were closed. The remaining four sites, which were taken on by Gazzano and Son are East Sheen, Battersea, Putney and Weybridge.
No-one from Begnies Traynor nor Valentina Fine Foods was immediately available to comment.
Valentina Fine Foods closes half of its sites following sale to Gazzano and Son >>
Restaurant group Valentina Fine Foods in administration >>
Videos from The Caterer archives
