The administrators of Barby, the company behind Jamie Oliver’s Barbecoa restaurants, have instructed CAPA to conduct a rates, rent and service charge audit on the company’s sites in London.
Peter Saville, Kevin Coates and Catherine Williamson of the business advisory and turnaround firm AlixPartners, were appointed as joint administrators of Barby on February 19 2018. The company operates two Barbecoa branded restaurants in the Piccadilly and St Paul’s areas of London.
The administrators’ instruction means CAPA will now undertake a forensic analysis of rent payments across the two London eateries. The team will use bespoke software to inspect the data and uncover errors or any anomalies, that enable them to recover cash for Barby’s creditors.
The team will also inspect rates and service charges paid out across the properties, to discover any overspend which can be retrieved to generate further sums for creditors.
Both Barbecoa restaurants were marketed in a sales process, but with no viable offers made for the Piccadilly property, the administrators closed this site upon their appointment.
The administrators were however able to secure a sale of the St Paul’s restaurant to a subsidiary of the Jamie Oliver Restaurant Group, safeguarding 90 jobs and allowing the business to continue trading.
