I watched the latest edition last night.
It's a great idea for a programme, but very poorly executed.
Last night it was about this guy who had taken over
Griffins Bakery, a long-established bakery from his parents in recent years.
There were very few numbers - he seemed to have borrowed €2m to buy a property and business valued at €3.5m. According to [broken link removed]he paid €1.5m in 2008. He probably spent €500k on developing it.
He expected to increase business but it declined by 50% instead.
But there was no indication of the extent of the problem.
I suspect that he has a profitable trading business but is just unable to service the money borrowed to buy the building. In which case a restructure should be achievable.
But that is the key measure and we got no information on it. It might be that the business is inherently unprofitable and the whole lot has to close.
He is the 5th generation in the business and he wants to keep it going, which is understandable. But if he borrowed €2m to buy it from his parents, then would his mother still have the €2m to buy it back?(His father has since passed away) Let the current owner go for a PIA or bankrupt, and his mother could buy the business and get a fresh start employing her son.
Or even simpler, to avoid all that, the bank could do a write down of debt, if the mother paid a lump-sum now.
The most useful part of the programme was again, the outsider they brought in to advise. They brought in a brand consultant who had good ideas about the decoration of the shop and the shop front. They implemented the ideas, but unfortunately sales have continued to decline.