The Argentine restaurant group Gaucho is teetering on the brink of administration, putting 1,500 jobs at risk, as it races to secure a deal that will help it pay a £1m-plus tax bill.
The company is understood to be weighing three potential rescue deals before a late-night deadline for the bill by HM Revenue & Customs on Friday.
Sources said it was hoped that a deal could be completed within the next few days. Any rescue is likely to involve only the16 Gaucho restaurants, which employ around 800 people, with all or most of its Cau casual dining chain, which employs 700, closing down.
Final proposals are understood to have been filed on Friday by Hugh Osmond, the former Pizza Express backer; Gaucho’s existing management team backed by Core Capital, part of the private equity firm ESO Capital, as well as by Limerston Capital, an investor in companies including Spark Energy, as first reported by Sky News.
The bidders are all expected to offer significantly less money than the £50m owed by Gaucho to its banks and sources said the process remained “uncertain”.
The privately owned group appointed the advisory firm KPMG in May to help assess options for its future and particularly the feasibility of Cau, which has 22 restaurants around the country.
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