PUBLIC CATERING: Undeterred by Insolvency, Kirsons Plans Another Chain
28 Jun 2011 • by Natalie Aster
Gunars Kirsons, the flamboyant owner of Latvian catering chain Lido, has fallen upon hard times. Even though his catering business has reached the status of a national legend, his other business ventures – such as a factory producing pre-fab homes of questionable taste or Latvian skiing resort with regular helicopter links to Riga – have proved a lot less successful.
In fact, they have been so unsuccessful that Kirsons himself was declared insolvent earlier this year. He may now lose his shares in numerous companies – including his labour of love Lido – as they are auctioned off to pay back his debts.
Undeterred, Kirsons has shown that he is a survivor. First, he has placed a number of lawyers and financial consultants in the board of Lido, hoping that their expertise will help restore the company's solvency.
Second, he has also announced that he is working to prevent the auction and work out another deal with his creditors. Finally, he has announced that he is planning to open a new catering retail outlet chain. The first venue is slated to open in August, and Kirsons hopes that the chain would grow to 20-30 outlets in two years.
According to Kirsons, the new outlet will be both a restaurant and a food market. Other than that, he has not elaborated what the difference between his new chain and Lido will be, instead preferring such vague comments as "the new outlet will focus on the people as its clients" (which, of course, begs the question just what else could constitute a viable target audience).
Unfortunately, news2biz's attempts to contact Kirsons for a more detailed comment proved unsuccessful.
The above news abstract has been taken from a bi-weekly newsletter to professionals doing business in Latvia "news2biz – Latvia".
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