Four Patisserie Valerie stores in Scotland to close

Three Patisserie Valerie outlets in Glasgow and one in Edinburgh are among the UK closures. Picture: Reuters/Simon Dawson

Three cafes in Glasgow and one in Edinburgh are among 71 UK sites for the cake chain that will close permanently.

An outlet operating out of Edinburgh’s Debenhams department store on Princes Street will shut.

Alarm bells ring as Scots business failures jump by fifth

Glasgow’s Debenhams will also lose its Patisserie Valerie arm.

Other stores at 18-20 Royal Exchange Square and 4 Southgate Street in Glasgow will also close for good.

Stores on George IV and North Bridge in Edinburgh have survived the raft of announced closures.

The decision would leave nine outets operating in Scotland, including one in each of Dundee and Aberdeen.

Administrators have confirmed the list of closures, which will lead to 920 redundancies.

KPMG, which was appointed on Tuesday evening, said the number consisted of 27 stand-alone stores, 19 Druckers outlets and 25 Patisserie Valerie concessions in Debenhams, Next and at motorway service areas.

The company’s bakery in Spitalfields has also closed.

The remaining 122 outlets will continue to trade while the professional services firm seeks a buyer for the business.

David Costley-Wood, partner at KPMG and joint administrator, said: “Since our appointment less than 24 hours ago, we have been pleased with the level of interest we have received in the business and so remain hopeful of achieving a positive outcome.

“In the meantime, we can reassure customers that across the remaining 122 stores, it is all but business as usual.”

Prior to its collapse, the cake chain employed more than 3,000 people.

Patisserie Valerie said yesterday that discussions with its lenders HSBC and Barclays to extend a standstill agreement on its debts had failed, leaving it with no option but to call in corporate undertakers.

The cake firm’s parent company Patisserie Holdings has been grappling with the fallout of an accounting fraud since October.

It said that the extent of fraud meant it was unable to renew its bank loans and it did not have sufficient funding to continue trading.

Chairman Luke Johnson has extended an unsecured, interest-free loan to help ensure that the January wages are paid to all staff working in the ongoing business.

Last week, Patisserie revealed KPMG had been hired to carry out a review of all options following the accounting scandal which pushed it close to collapse in 2018.

It also unveiled the “devastating” extent of irregularities in its books, which included thousands of false entries into the company’s ledgers.

The firm said an initial investigation pointed to cashflow and profitability being worse than previously thought when the problem was first discovered in October.

The discovery of a black hole in the company’s accounts in October last year pushed it into a full blown crisis which saw it almost cease trading.