Boparan to lose out as butchers enter administration

2 Sisters owner Ranjit Boparan invested £5.1m in butchers Crawshaw Group in April 2017 but today the food retailer has announced plans to appoint administrators.

Boparan Private Office was the largest shareholder, with a 29.7% stake, after last year’s “transformational” supply chain partnership.

Ranjit Boparan of 2 Sisters

Ranjit Boparan, president of 2 Sisters’ parent company Boparan Holdings

However the Yorkshire-based butcher has failed to secure funds to support a turnaround plan. It had been considering a number of remedial actions, including raising additional funding through an equity capital raising in order to address the key issues identified with the company.

Crawshaw previously reported a ‘disappointing’ first half to the year. The AIM-listed business saw half year like-for-like sales fall 13% as pre-tax losses jumped to £1.7m.

At the time Jim Viggars, Crawshaw CEO, said: “Clearly the results for H1 are disappointing, but not entirely a surprise given market conditions and the issues that face a retail estate that has too many high street stores and currently not enough factory stores.”

Boparan’s investment in Crawshaw is relatively modest compared with his personal wealth and the size of his business empire, which includes Harry Ramsden’s, Ed’s Easy Diner and Bernard Matthews. 2 Sisters generates annual sales of £3.3bn, while Boparan’s personal wealth has been estimated at more than £500m.

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