By Scott Wright
THE Scottish chairman of Hostmore, the hospitality company that owns the Fridays bar and restaurant chain, is stepping down from the post, just two weeks after its chief executive left with immediate effect.
Gavin Manson will retire as chairman and non-executive director of the company at the end of its annual general meeting on May 25 to focus on his other executive commitments, Hostmore said.
The news comes after Scottish hospitality veteran Robert Cook quit abruptly as chief executive of Hostmore on January 10, after three years in the role. Mr Cook departed as Hostmore battles to restore revenues to pre-Covid levels, amid continuing challenges in the hospitality sector. It reported this month that revenues for the 26 weeks ended January 1, 2023, were 14 per cent adrift of the same period in its 2019 financial year.
READ MORE: Fridays chief quits role abruptly amid travails in hospitality sector
Mr Manson’s association with Fridays goes back to 2016 when he joined Electra Private Equity, which he served as chief financial and operating officer. TGI Fridays, as it was then known, was a portfolio company of Electra, which spun off and floated the hospitality business in 2021. That was followed by Electra renaming itself Unbound Group. Mr Manson is currently acting as executive director of Unbound.
He will be succeeded as chairman of Hostmore by Stephen Welker, a current non-executive director, subject to Mr Welker being elected as a director at the AGM.
Mr Manson, who before joining Electra held senior financial roles with Thomas Cook, Premier Farnell, Seven Seas and Merck, said yesterday: “It has been a privilege to have served as chairman of Hostmore and I am pleased that Stephen will succeed me in this role, given his understanding and knowledge of the business, along with his other strengths.
“Though I remain a supportive significant shareholder, I will now be focusing on my other executive commitments and wish everyone at the company all the best for the future.”
David Lis, senior independent director at Hostmore, said: “On behalf of the board, I would like to thank Gavin for the contribution he has made to Hostmore. Gavin played an integral role in the demerger of the Company from Electra Private Equity PLC and his experience, knowledge and leadership have been greatly valued by us all. He goes with our best wishes for the future.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here