Patisserie Valerie
Patisserie Valerie entered into administration at the start of
this year following the discovery of fraud within the company. It
is thought that inflated profit margins and sale figures and
thousands of false entries in the company's ledgers caused the
company's accounts to be overstated by approximately
£94m. These factors were not identified by Grant Thornton
when it conducted its audit. This was despite the fact that
suspicions were raised by HMRC over two years ago.
Luke Johnson, a successful entrepreneur and the majority
shareholder in Patisserie Valerie, wrote in his article in the
Sunday Times1 that "In business, as in life,
there are certain documents and facts you rely on. They might be
audited accounts, bank balances, a passport or a qualification. If
these are fake, you wonder what is real and what is
not."
