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Pizza Express will close 73 restaurants, putting 1,100 jobs at risk, after creditors approved a bailout restructure.
The casual restaurant chain has 355 Pizza Express restaurants open in the UK, and more than 30 restaurants and music venues are scheduled to reopen in the coming weeks. It also operates 150 points of sale internationally.
The closures span from Aberdeen to Torquay, including its original site on Wardour Street in Soho, which opened in 1965, and other outlets in London, Birmingham and Bristol.
Pizza Express said that the approval of its voluntary settlement agreement with the company (CVA), a form of insolvency, would help secure 9,000 jobs in the UK.
It paves the way for a financial restructuring to reduce the group’s debt burden from £ 735 million to £ 319 million and potentially hand control over to its bondholders in a debt-for-equity swap.
Creditors have agreed to invest £ 144 million to help reopen Pizza Express stores that were forced to close in March under a government lockdown to control the spread of the coronavirus.
A potential buyer is also being sought as part of the restructuring process.
The group is owned by Hony Capital, a Chinese company that bought Pizza Express in 2014 in a £ 900 million deal in hopes of expanding the chain in China.
The company has said it will seek redeployment opportunities for those affected by the closures.
Restaurants have been closing outlets as commerce plunged due to fears over the coronavirus and pressure on family finances.
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The government’s Eat out to help out discount program has helped keep businesses running and encouraged diners to return to restaurants and cafes, but the number of diners continues to decline year after year.
Pizza Express is the latest chain to close restaurants and cut jobs: the owner of the Ask Italian and Zizzi pizza chains will permanently close 75 restaurants with the loss of up to 1,200 jobs, while Casual Dining Group, the owner of Bella Italia, Café Rouge and Las Iguanas closed 91 points of sale when it entered administration in July.
In June, the Restaurant Group, which owns Frankie & Benny’s and Garfunkel’s, said it would close 120 restaurants, with nearly 3,000 jobs lost, while more than 1,000 Carluccio employees lost their jobs as part of a rescue deal in May. .
