THE company which owns 87 TGI Fridays branches across the British Isles, including the business trading at the Waterfront in St Helier, has gone into administration.
Hostmore, a company set up by the private equity owner of the restaurant chain, announced that it had appointed administrators and was seeking to sell restaurants spread across England, Scotland and Wales, as well as the Jersey operation.
The news follows an unsuccessful move by Hostmore to buy the US restaurant chain for £177 million. The proposed deal, first made public in April, would have brought a merger with US-based TGI Fridays Inc to create a larger firm that would remain listed in London, but it fell through earlier this month.
Although the 87 British sites are continuing to trade, the uncertainty over the chain’s future represent a fresh blow to Jersey’s Waterfront, which in recent years has seen the closure of venues including The Bar, Arcadia, WYSIWYG, Pizza Hut and the Quest escape room.
Currently TGI Fridays is one of three remaining businesses still trading within the Waterfront complex, along with KFC and Cineworld.
Hostmore was set up by the previous owner of the chain, Electra Private Equity, in 2021, with an opening share price of 147 pence, but its value had fallen to 0.2 pence by yesterday morning.
The first TGI Friday restaurant was opened in New York in 1965, with the first UK operation being opened in Birmingham in 1986.
