RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Pres­tige Hold­ings Ltd CEO Si­mon Hardy has giv­en the as­sur­ance that TGI Fri­days’ op­er­a­tions in Trinidad and To­ba­go and the wider Caribbean re­gion will not be af­fect­ed by the re­cent bank­rupt­cy fil­ing of the main par­ent com­pa­ny in the Unit­ed States,

Hardy con­firmed that the fi­nan­cial is­sues fac­ing the Amer­i­can par­ent com­pa­ny im­pact on­ly the 39 US-based restau­rants, which op­er­ate sep­a­rate­ly from the in­ter­na­tion­al fran­chis­es.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Hardy said Pres­tige Hold­ings Ltd, which op­er­ates four TGI Fri­days lo­ca­tions in Trinidad and one in Kingston, Ja­maica, will con­tin­ue busi­ness as usu­al.

“Our busi­ness re­mains strong and prof­itable,” Hardy said, adding, “We fo­cus on bring­ing ex­pe­ri­ences to our guests. This re­mains our fo­cus and has en­abled us to suc­ceed.”

On Sat­ur­day, the US-based TGI Fri­days chain filed for Chap­ter 11 bank­rupt­cy pro­tec­tion, cit­ing pro­longed fi­nan­cial chal­lenges, large­ly at­trib­uted to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and a col­lapsed deal with UK-based Host­more.

In the fil­ing with the US Bank­rupt­cy Court for the North­ern Dis­trict of Texas, the com­pa­ny list­ed as­sets and li­a­bil­i­ties in the range of $100 mil­lion to $500 mil­lion.

Ac­cord­ing to a Reuters re­port, Ro­hit Manocha, ex­ec­u­tive chair­man of TGI Fri­days, stat­ed that the chain’s pri­ma­ry fi­nan­cial dif­fi­cul­ties stem from pan­dem­ic im­pacts and ex­ist­ing cap­i­tal struc­ture.

The Dal­las-based com­pa­ny, owned by Tri­Ar­ti­san Cap­i­tal Ad­vi­sors, has se­cured fi­nanc­ing to con­tin­ue op­er­a­tions in its cor­po­rate-owned es­tab­lish­ments across the US.

The com­pa­ny’s in­ter­na­tion­al fran­chis­es, in­clud­ing those in the Caribbean, op­er­ate in­de­pen­dent­ly un­der a fran­chise mod­el and are not part of the Chap­ter 11 process.

TGI Fri­days Fran­chisor, which holds the brand and in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty, has grant­ed fran­chis­es to 56 op­er­a­tors in 55 coun­tries, all of which are ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue nor­mal op­er­a­tions de­spite the par­ent com­pa­ny’s re­struc­tur­ing ef­forts.

TGI Fri­days, known for its “hap­py hour” theme and ca­su­al din­ing ex­pe­ri­ence, be­gan as a sin­gle bar in Man­hat­tan, New York, in 1965 and has since grown to in­clude fran­chis­es world­wide.