JAMIE Oliver’s Italian restaurant chain burnt an eye-watering £25million hole in his pockets through it’s collapse, it was reported yesterday.
The celebrity chef, 44, dipped into his own personal bank account to pay the wages of roughly 1,000 staff who have been made redundant.
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Creditors have also suffered £83million of losses after stumping up funds to try to keep the flagging business afloat, according to The Times.
Following the closure announcement of 22 of the company’s 23 restaurants in May, anxious employees were seen arriving to work in tears.
But Oliver’s £1million ‘voluntary ex-gratia contribution’ to cover their wages only scratches the surface of his overall losses.
Jamie Oliver Holdings, the chef’s personal account, supplied an £18.3million secured loans injection to the restaurant business, of which it will only claw back £2million.
Of the creditors, HSBC will shoulder almost half of the total £83million losses after providing Jamie’s Italian with £39.4million worth of secured debt, according to the joint administrators’ report.
Oliver, who made assurances to the bank, has paid HSBC £4.7million.
The TV star founded Jamie’s Italian in 2008 with his ex-mentor Gennaro Contaldo and soon swelled the company’s presence to 40 outlets nationwide.
But in 2017, six branches were closed and by May the business had racked up £71.5million worth of debt as the chef revealed the company had ‘simply run out of cash’.
Oliver, who shot to fame with a host of TV shows and cook books, has netted an estimated £240million since entering the public eye.
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