Jamie Oliver Holdings Limited made £8.7million last year

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Jamie Oliver Holdings Limited (JOHL) made £8.7m EBITDA (Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) last year – but the chef personally took out a £1.3M loan from the company, and charged JOHL £60,000 in rent -accounts reveal.   

JOHL group ‘comprises a number of businesses that cover all the media interests of Jamie Oliver, primarily TV & digital production and distribution, book publishing, endorsements and royalty streams’. 

The celebrity chef, 46, who is worth an estimated £240million, suffered a turbulent financial period in 2019 when Jamie Oliver Restaurants Group Ltd went into administration, with 22 restaurants closing.

Accounts for JOHL group for the year ending December 31 2020, show the company made £8.7 million EBITDA and turnover of £24,015,754 [down from £8,962,856 and £29,955,022 in 2019]. 

The financial statement said: ‘The Group primarily measures financial performance in terms of pre-exceptional EBITDA (Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization), which for 2020 was £8.7m. 

‘The principal drives of the contraction in profitability were the travel restrictions, temporary closures and social distancing as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.’ 

Accumulated profits/Equity now stand at £16,228,280 [up from £15,046,237 in 2019] while £10,680,799 ‘cash at bank and in hand’ is up from £333,892 in 2019.    

The document also reveals Jamie and his wife Jools received a huge loan from JOHL of £1.3million with a note stating: ‘The loan is interest bearing at a rate of 2.25% per annum. Interest of £5,887 was paid in the year.’

Jamie and Jools also received rental income from the group of £60,000 with the six directors of the group – including Oliver – paying themselves a total of £1,714,335 in ‘renumeration’. The highest paid earned £871,168 – but the document does not name them.

JOHL’s accounts show the group ‘received support of £418k from the government by way of grants through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme in the year, which allowed the group to be able to keep a total of 40 additional staff employed.

This means each staff member cost the taxpayers £10,450 – it has 151 employees, meaning more than 25 per cent were furloughed. 

 The accounts also state the company is running as a ‘going concern’ due to the ‘potential impact of the coronavirus on our business, taking into account the level of overheads to which the business is committed, the level of contracted revenue and the strong cash position of the group’.

The company also has a £3million ‘bank facility’ or overdraft – and no dividends were paid out. 

JOHL includes companies such as Jamie Oliver Enterprises, Jools Enterprises Ltd and Jamie Oliver Productions.    

In May 2019 Oliver’s chains Fifteen, Jamie’s Italian and Barbecoa went into administration, with more than 20 restaurants shutting and 1,000 jobs lost as a result. 

‘I’ve had the best of it – I don’t know anyone who had it better than me – and I’ve had the worst of it – that’s life. You have to focus it to a positive.’ 

Accounts released in May 2019 showed the company made a loss of more than £29million on a turnover of £100million in 2017.

But in all its seven years in the black (2009 to 2015) the firm netted only £24million.

In fact, despite turning over more than three quarters of a billion pounds between 2008 and 2017, Jamie’s Italian made a net loss of £15million over the period. 

The extraordinary financial figures called into question whether the massive business – which in 2018 was reported to have debts in excess of £70million – was ever truly viable or was always destined to fail. 

In November 2019, Jamie emotionally discussed the collapse of his restaurant empire and his hopes to start afresh with new eateries in an interview on The Graham Norton Show. 

He said: ‘It was 13 years of hard work and Fifteen was my baby, but I ran out of money, ran out of everything and it was really tough, but you have to crack on and try to get yourself together. 

Earlier this month it was claimed Jamie is struggling to secure A-list guests for his popular Friday Night Feast show in the wake of the pandemic, according to reports.

Jamie hosts the show alongside his best friend Jimmy Doherty, and in the past the pair have seen the likes of Kate Hudson, Salma Hayek and Susan Sarandon make their way to the quaint café on Southend Pier.

However, ‘uncertainty over international travel because of Covid has made it tough to bring in big-name guests,’ according to The Sun.   

A source told the paper: ‘While many shows have been able to get up and running with lockdown lifting, that’s proved trickier for Friday Night Feast.

‘They’ve got a reputation for mixing British stars with international entertainers and that’s something they want to continue. But that’s not easy with restrictions in various countries throwing a spanner in the works.’       

They also revealed that Jamie and his production team are now ‘looking at 2022 before they can get all their ducks in a row,’ but insisted that Channel 4 is ‘very keen’ for the show’s return.

Since its 2014 debut, Jamie has made a new season every year, however has not shot a new season since 2019 due to the pandemic, although the celebrity chef and his team were able to make a Christmas special last year.