Jamie Oliver's earnings hit by restaurant group collapse
Pre-tax profits at the chef’s media, licensing and franchise arm almost halved to £7.8m, down from £14.4m in 2017.
This was largely due to a one-off charge of £9.8m related to the separate Jamie Oliver Restaurant Group, which fell in to administration in May 2019.
During 2018 the chef’s television and publishing business also provided £15.9m funding to support his struggling casual dining empire.
The company paid out a dividend of £5.2m, down from £8.6m the previous year.
Paul Hunt, CEO of Jamie Oliver Holdings – who is also Oliver’s brother-in-law – says the business had “weathered the challenges” of 2018 to provide a “resilient set of results”. Underlying profits before the exceptional costs rose 4.9% to £17.8m.
During the year the chef opened 12 new restaurants overseas, bringing the total number of sites under franchise to 62 at the year end.
Revenues in the licensing business declined, but the company secured long-term contracts for Oliver to promote Tesco and create a branded range of products for Shell.
“We are a commercial business with social purpose running through everything we do,” says Hunt.
“We have emerged from the past six months with complete clarity around our vision and values, as well as a renewed focus on what we want to achieve in the coming years.”
Oliver is reportedly looking to reposition his wider business around his public health campaigns with the aim of turning the company in to an ethically-minded ‘B Corporation’.
