1 In which respects does the Jamie Oliver Group exemplify issues relevant to entrepreneurial businesses

(see Section 5.2.3)? Cheery chef Jamie Oliver left school at 16 with barely any qualifications at all. A quarter of a century later, after a career as a TV chef and restauranteur, he is believed to be worth £250m (about €300m or $300m). His cookbooks sell so well that he is the biggest non-fiction author in the United Kingdom. But by 2018, Oliver’s empire looked as if it might all be falling apart. Could Paul Hunt, Oliver’s brotherin-

law, save the Jamie Oliver Group of businesses?

The mid-market restaurant segment occupied by many of Oliver’s restaurants – most notably, Jamie’s Italian – had become very difficult by 2018. The rise of takeaway deliveries via Deliveroo and Uber offered a convenient alternative to going out to eat. The retail shopping areas where many of these restaurants operated were declining in the face of internet competition. Many restaurant chains were closing branches, including the Italian mid-market Carluccio’s and premium burger chain Byron.

During 2017–18, Jamie’s Italian restaurants cut back heavily, shedding 600 out of their 2,220 employees. The Jamie Oliver Group lost £20m in the financial year. The Group took on a loan of £37m. As Oliver himself put it: ‘We had simply run out of cash.’

Although Oliver himself was a notorious workaholic –

often getting to work at 5.30 in the morning and returning home at 9.00 in the evening – most of his energy was put into the creative and public side of the business. He was a chef and television star, not a business executive. Oliver owned more than 75 per cent of the business, but he knew he had to delegate its management.

Paul Hunt joined the Jamie Oliver Group as chief executive in 2014. Paul Hunt’s own business background was controversial. In the late 1990s, he was fined heavily for misconduct at a City of London financial trading company.

Later a finance company he had been chairman of went into administration with £5m debts and nearly 100 job losses just a year after his departure. Two other companies of which he had been director ran into financial and regulatory trouble.

By his account, Hunt found a chaotic group of businesses:

‘We had somewhere in the region of . . . 38 different businesses that we were involved in. Everything from talent agencies to graphic design studios, to restaurants.

We needed to make the business about Jamie again.’ Hunt closed or sold several businesses, with many senior management departures. Notoriously he closed one business on Christmas Eve. But Hunt worked hard, claiming to sleep overnight in the office many times.

The end result was a Group reorganised around four main business areas: media and publishing; licensing and endorsements; restaurants; and philanthropy. Hunt brought in a new group of managers to cut costs and bring down restaurant prices.