Shareholders back Patisserie Valerie rescue plan

Shareholders in the parent company of Patisserie Valerie yesterday backed the board’s plan for a £15.7m placing.

The Patisserie Holdings board confirmed that 99% of shareholders had backed the rescue plan, which sees chairman Luke Johnson’s stake in the company reduce from 37% to 28.5%.

There is still no information on when trading in shares will recommence and those inside the meeting described it as bad-tempered.

Shareholders expressed frustration that the board had opted for a placing with institutional investors rather than a rights issue, which could have given all investors the chance to buy the discounted shares.

According to The Times, Johnson insisted that the company could not afford the time it would have taken to organise a rights issue. “At the time we were three hours from going into bankruptcy,” he said.

“On October 9 we had a winding-up petition, we had frozen bank accounts, we had stores being shut, we had creditors refusing to supply us, we had other creditors jumping on the back of the winding-up petition.

“If we had not injected the capital on the 10th we would have been obliged by law as directors of the company to appoint administrators because the business would have been insolvent.”

He also confirmed that he and his fellow directors had not participated in the placing, saying. “I would have done but I didn’t want to be accused of buying cheap shares.”

He also said that any management changes would be made only if demanded by shareholders.