Just six weeks ago, Harden’s asked: “Does it ever occur to the Ramsay camp that if they stopped talking nonsense, they might get a better press?”. Spookily, they’ve started doing just that**.
Yesterday‘s Sunday Times contained a major confessional/contritional interview with the Sweary One, which was so important that – though Ramsay was in Chelsea just two weeks ago – it was necessary to fly a London-based journalist all the way to Los Angeles to conduct it.
The article contains lots of interesting information, but highlights include:
• at one point, “we [presumably Gordon Ramsay Holdings] were told to go into administration”, and the group is currently shored up with “several million pounds of my own money”. There have, however, been no breaches of banking covenants since February.
• Ramsay concedes his ego got the better of him. “We flew too high, too fast.” (This criticism, incidentally, has been a theme of Harden’s commentary for the past two years, during which time it has been dismissed by Ramsay’s spokesmen as malicious and self-interested*.)
• The international market has proved much tougher than the UK (which is to say London) market. In New York, losses were at one point running at £2m per annum. (It is not stated how, and to what extent, these losses have been abated.)
• Ramsay remains confident for the future, and predicts restaurant (non-TV) profits of “£7m to £8m next year”.
• GRH’s 2008 accounts will be published by June this year, “on time”, he promises. Now that really will be a turn-up for the books!
*PS As GuideGirl points out, it follows from the recent admission that the business had been in financial difficulties that the numerous denials of that fact by Ramsay spokesmen were, similarly, nonsense.
**PPS (2 June). Originally, we reported this turnaround as surely being the result of the recent appointment of a new PR guru, Phil Hall.
After a call today from the man himself, however, we stand corrected: the article was the work of GRH’s long-standing PR team at Sauce Communications. Which is almost more interesting. Quite why Sauce – with Ramsay as a shareholder, and in situ throughout – seem suddenly to have reversed their strategy of the past couple of years it’s difficult to understand.
Perhaps they really did take notice of Harden’s helpful advice, noted above? But if it was Sauce responsible for such a major reverse – ‘profile’ doesn’t get much higher than the Sunday Times business section – what’s Mr Hall for? Is he just a firefighter?
Understanding how the Kremlin works must be easier!
PPPS (3 June) Scrub that last comment! The picture becomes clearer. It seems that Mr Hall also rang GuideGirl, who updated their story too. Apparently, the interview had been organised by Sauce before his appointment. And as to the change of Sauce strategy? GuideGirl speculates that “maybe they're learning that complete denials aren't a long-term strategy after all”.
PPPPS (5 June) For further background on recent Gordon Ramsay financial performance, see heraldsun.com.au.
PPPPPS (9 June) And, for an insight into the media circus which the life of Gordon Ramsay now appears to be, see the following report from Down Under, on ninemsn.com
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