Food
The final bids to buy Jones the Grocer’s Singapore business were accepted on Friday last week, with majority shareholder L Capital Asia putting in a bid to buy the company.
The target is to complete the sale by next month. It is not known how many bids were received, and how much was offered.
The gourmet grocer’s Singapore arm, Jones the Grocer International (JTGI), was earlier placed under judicial management – where an external manager is appointed to manage a company that cannot pay its debts.
Its assets – including two outlets in Dempsey Hill and Mandarin Gallery – were put up for sale.
Its parent company, Jones Group Holdings in Australia, went into administration last December due to disputes between its former chief executive and shareholder John Manos, and majority shareholder L Capital – the equity arm of luxury group LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton. Mr Manos also ran Jones the Grocer’s day-to-day operations in Singapore.
When contacted, L Capital chairman and managing partner Ravi Thakran said the firm placed a bid as the business in Singapore has not been “adversely impacted”.
In a statement, L Capital said business performance under Mr Manos’ leadership was “delivered poorly” when seen against “agreed business plans”.
It was also “alarmed at the state of the business and, after being frustrated by Mr Manos in our attempts to course correct, infuse talent, and improve governance… we decided to take conclusive action”.
This is the first time L Capital is commenting on Jones the Grocer’s woes.
The firm terminated Mr Manos’ employment as chief executive late last year, and then applied to the Singapore courts to place JTGI under judicial management.
It succeeded in March, and PwC Singapore’s business recovery services leader Goh Thien Phong was appointed judicial manager.
By then, JTGI had accumulated about $19 million in total liabilities.
Mr Goh found, among other things, that JTGI was spending money without basic rules in place. Each chef, for instance, could independently put in food orders with suppliers without following proper accounting procedures.
Mr Manos grew the brand from just one outlet in Australia in 2006 – when he took over – to 18 stores worldwide in 2012, before L Capital came on board.
Mr Manos, speaking to The Straits Times, said: “The issue (why Jones went bust in Singapore) has to do more with management and shareholder issues.” He added that L Capital had a “very aggressive” growth plan, as well as a “broader agenda” that he did not agree with. The debt, he said, came from overheads from plans to venture into China and Thailand. “We hired people, took on all these overheads, not because we needed them in Singapore but because we were planning regional growth,” he said.
He said chefs placing orders independently was not part of a system he put in place. “If they did that, it was because these chefs were going past the system, and taking such actions themselves,” he added.
Retail experts said putting a flailing company under judicial management could be a way to resolve disputes.
“You can say that firms may do this to get rid of a partner. It’s fair game,” said Singapore Polytechnic retail lecturer Amos Tan, adding he was not surprised that L Capital Asia had put in a bid. “Branding does not happen overnight, and Jones the Grocer is a good brand, with an existing database of customers and suppliers.”
The two Jones the Grocer outlets in Dempsey Hill and Mandarin Gallery are operating as usual.
