A suite of restaurant brands has reported a $288 million loss, after recently being taken over by lenders.
The hospitality group, now called Pacific Hunter, grew out of celebrity chef Neil Perry’s Sydney steak restaurant, Rockpool by merging it with other hospitality assets back in 2016 and Perry subsequently left the company.
It includes Spice Temple, Sake, Fratelli Fresh, El Camino Cantina and Beerhaus, with sixteen of its venues closing over the 2023-24 financial year and the group reporting a $76 million loss in 2022.
High inflation and cost-of-living pressures have devastated the hospitality industry in recent months, but sales actually increased at Pacific Hunter in the 2023-24 financial year.
The company reported $298 million in sales, up from $209 million the year before.
Despite the increase, the group has still struggled under the weight of high debts and payments to suppliers and employees increased from $198 million in the 2022-23 financial year, to $304 million the past financial year.
In October, Pacific Hunter’s major lender, Metrics Credit Partners, took full ownership and control of the company from Quadrant Private Equity.
Metrics took on the company’s loans and the company currently has $420 million in current and non-current loans and borrowings, but overall liabilities are higher again.
In a report the company's directors said that “the group experienced a loss" that was “mainly as a result of the write-off of goodwill and deferred tax assets and impairment of brand value”.