The Telegraph 15/10/18

Patisserie Valerie uncovers £10m secret overdrafts after ‘nightmare’ week. Patisserie Holdings (CAKE) spent £9.7m using overdraft facilities with HSBC and Barclays that the troubled cake chain’s boss said this weekend he did not even know about. Luke Johnson, the chain’s executive chairman who saved the group from collapse on Friday after personally injecting £20m into the business, told The Sunday Times it had been “the most harrowing week of my life” and like a “nightmare” he was hoping to wake up from. The company last week found that £9.7m had been spent on overdrafts, which Mr Johnson said he and the board did not know about. Overdraft facilities are mentioned the last annual accounts, for the year to Sept 30 2017, which says “short- term flexibility is achieved by overdraft facilities”. The accounts, however, do not show the overdraft facilities being drawn upon.