No longer worth £10m but Gerry's on the way back

Gerry Martin's bankers were assuring him of support just weeks before they pulled the plug on his £30m Old Monk group in October. Talking to the Morning Advertiser this week as he prepared to vacate the Strand office of his failed company, Martin said he and other investors were totally mis-led by the Royal Bank of Scotland. According to Martin, it was on the basis of assured support that Martin's father ­ a former managing director of Guinness International ­ had invested £300,000 of his own money and Martin himself had borrowed £100,000 from his personal bankers to fund an extension on the Newquay Springbok. Friends had also committed extra funds on the understanding that the company was to enjoy continued support from the Royal Bank of Scotland. All saw their investments wiped out when the bank pulled the plug in October. Bolt from the blue Just weeks after the decision, Martin senior contracted pneumonia and was on the critical list, only just pulling through. After four weeks on the isolation ward, he is still seriously ill. The Royal Bank of Scotland's actions came as a total shock, says Martin. "RBS called us to a meeting at four o'clock on the afternoon we were opening the Houndsditch Old Monk ­ just an hour before a drinks party for analysts and the press. It was a total bolt from the blue. Only a couple of months before, in August, they'd commissioned a report on us from Pannell Kerr Fosters, the accountants, and Colliers, the surveyors, which recommended continued support. "And only a month or so before they pulled the plug, their Specialist Lending Service had assured us things were OK. We're going to get you through this ­ it's going to be all right', were their words. "To make it all the more shocking, by then, we'd sold off the four pub restaurants and exchanged on the Puzzle deal and acouple of others. I'd just paid out £115,000 in some redundancies at head office. "We'd started 2002 owing £15m and by August it was down to less than £11m. My father had just put in £300,000 to the Houndsditch Monk after we'd asked them about it. Go for it' was their advice. Then someone in Edinburgh decided they would clear the decks ­ and that was that. It was shocking." Losing his company ­ which he'd built up over the past five years and which made him worth £10m on paper ­ was one thing. Letting down friends and family who'd invested and all the unsecured creditors was equally devastating. "I feel awful for them," he says. But four months later, Gerry Martin is on the comeback trail. Old Monk may be in administration, with more packing crates than people in its Strand head office, but its former boss has a new funder, a new accountant ­ his wife ­ and four of his old sites back again. The latest, the Old Monk in Cardiff, returned to the fold last Thursday, 48 hours before the Wales v England Six Nations rugby international. On Monday, Martin banked £60,000 personally, the weekend's takings fromthat site and his Springbok, justa conversion kick away in St Mary's Street. With the two other sites, at Sheffield and Birmingham's Broad Street ­ all on the same rents as before ­ the Springbok group is averaging sales of £20,000 a week and Martin has started to recover from thetraumas of last year. "It's good to be back at the coal face ­ close to the pound notes again. That's my strength, rather than dealing with the City. I feel tremendously excited about what's happening. We've got a great brand in Springbok, and I feel really passionate about the business. I'm getting credit from Coors, my suppliers, for the next 12 months so I've got a year to build volume and credibility, and get better deals. It's important to grow carefully, rather than quickly. But I'm confident I will do it, I've no doubt I'll do it." The bankers who share his faith are Barclays. They've had his personal account since he was 16 just over 30 years ago. They had Old Monk, too, until he switched to the RBS 18 months ago. There have been other mistakes. Martin admits he should never have taken Old Monk public. "It was totally wrong. There are so many more pressures as a PLC. It made it very difficult for us to offload the pub restaurants at below book price. But in hindsight, we should have been less worried about what the City thought and just done it." Biggest mistake Martin also believes he should have started selling off six months earlier than he did: "We'd probably have been all right then." The biggest mistake ­ which he's determined not to repeat ­ was rushing the opening programme. "We concentrated on the sexy new sites rather than looking after what we already had." Looking forward With his wife, an accountant and former banker, now handling the books, there's no danger of that happening again. Martin will be moving out in the next few weeks and setting up a "rent free" office over the Old Monk in Cardiff. He's keen to look forward, but can't help looking back at the hurtful press comments last year when he went down. "Reports were making me out as some kind of flash harry, just spraying money around. That wasn't fair. "OK, I drive a Jag and I've a Rolex watch ­ but that was given to me by my wife six years ago on my 40th birthday. And for five years, I was worth £10m. "I certainly didn't pay £100,000 to join a golf club in Surrey." The Virginia Water house is rented. His two children are being privately educated, but Martin says he would live in Northern Ireland, where education is of a betterstandard and free, rather than take them out. "Perhaps I can be accused of being a bon viveur," says Martin. Framed photos, waiting to be crated, show him at play with the likes of Jerry Guscott and Lennox Lewis. The spoof Viagra-labelled Holsten Pils bottle clearly testifies to a guy who enjoys a laugh. It'll probably be a while before Martin lets down his hair with real abandon. But equally clearly, he's determined to taste success once more. Whether he'll ever trust bankers again is another story.