Leon has announced it will close several of its restaurants and cut jobs as part of a major restructure of the High Street food chain.
The company has appointed Quantuma as administrators after Leon’s original co-founder John Vincent reacquired the company last month from Asda.
The move places the future of the worst performing of its 71 stores at risk, but so far no closures have been confirmed.
The company employs about 1,000 staff and Leon has not said how many workers will be affected but added it would try to find jobs in the stores that remain open in the first instance.
Mr Vincent said he believed the company had drifted from its core values under EG and Asda’s leadership, but he was also sympathetic to the challenges they faced running the “healthier” fast food chain.
“In the last two years, Asda had bigger fish to fry, and Leon was always a business they didn’t feel fitted their strategy”, he said.
“If you look at the performance of Leon’s peers, you will see that everyone is facing challenges – companies are reporting significant losses due to working patterns and increasingly unsustainable taxes.”
