Director leaves as FishWorks talks continue

Troubled restaurant group and fishmonger FishWorks saw its shares slump by more than 30% today after it announced that finance director Ratnesh Bagdai had resigned with immediate effect.

The Bristol-based company, which has 12 restaurants around the UK, also advised that its annual accounts, due to be distributed to shareholders tomorrow, will include a statement from its auditors regarding the group’s “ability to continue as a going concern”.

In the statement to shareholders the auditors confirmed that the group is currently in talks with its bank and other parties to secure the financial future of the firm, adding the directors were “confident of the bank’s future support”.

At the same time, the group is holding talks with various parties to seek further investment capital into the business.

Mr Bagdai, former finance director of Caprice Holdings, owners of The Ivy and Le Caprice restaurants in London, is leaving the group less than a year after he joined in February 2006.

The news follows the departure of the group’s chairman, Roy Morris, in December, which came less than two weeks after the group issued a profits warning in November.

At the time, the group downgraded its pre-tax profits forecasts for the year to July 31 2007 by £450,000 (€675,000) to £750,000 (€1,135,000) after a rapid expansion and acquisition programme led to “some underperformance”.

FishWorks opened seven new restaurants between July 2005 and October 2006, and was also hit by its exit from a concession deal with the department store Harvey Nichols.

The group added that its acquisition of Channel Fisheries in January last year and its subsequent integration into the group had also detracted from the successful execution of the FishWorks model in some of the newer sites.

Additionally, a key site for the restaurant chain, which was due to open in September 2006 has been delayed until July.

FishWorks began life in 1995 when former accountant Mitch Tonks opened his first specialist fishmonger in Bath in 1995. The chain now includes award-winning restaurants in Bath, Marylebone and Chiswick.

Mr Tonks, who is chief executive of the firm, was awarded “Restaurateur of the Year” at the launch of the Tatler 2006 Restaurant Guide.

FishWorks also runs cookery schools in Bath, Bristol, Chiswick, Christchurch, Marylebone and Richmond and has a fresh fish home delivery service.