Patisserie Valerie attracts flurry of rescue bids

Administrators to Patisserie Valerie say they have received “a number of offers” for the business.

The bakery chain collapsed last month following the discovery of fraudulent activity in its accounts.

More than 70 stores have already closed resulting in 920 redundancies but 122 are still trading.

David Costley-Wood, partner at KPMG and joint administrator, said: “We are encouraged by the scope of offers received from trade and finance buyers for all and for parts of the business. We will now be taking a number of these offers forward, and hope to be able to make progress in short order.

“We’d like to thank employees, suppliers, creditors and also Patisserie Valerie’s loyal customers for their invaluable support in helping us to continue to trade the business over the last two weeks.”

The cafe chain had been fighting for its survival since October, when it first revealed accounting irregularities that cast serious doubt over its viability.

The company said it had found “thousands of false entries” on the company’s ledgers, which was part of a “very significant manipulation of the balance sheet and profit and loss accounts”.

Investigations by the police and regulators are continuing as answers are sought as to what exactly happened and how auditors failed to spot the accounting irregularities.

The group had been valued at £450m when its shares were suspended in October, with the appointment of administrators making them worthless.