Voila! has 150 staff across the UK

The Voila! consortium bought the Pierre Victoire brand and 33 restaurants for �4m in October 1998.

The deal was said to include only the best-performing outlets from the Pierre Victoire portfolio of more than 100 restaurants.

Fourteen of those were directly owned by Voila!, with the rest being held by franchisees.

The firm has restaurants across the UK, in locations including Edinburgh, Glasgow, Bath, Cambridge, Liverpool, and Manchester.

Pierre Victoire was started more than 12 years ago by French chef Pierre Levicky, who offered customers a three course meal for under �5.

Flotation failure

However, the company ran into financial trouble by expanding too fast, too soon.

It ran out of money after plans for a Stock Market flotation collapsed.

Mr Levicky, 41, who recently returned to France, was last week banned at the Court of Session in Edinburgh from running any British company for the next 13 years.

The court ruled he was "responsible for, or allowed, the misapplication of substantial funds of the company" prior to it going into liquidation for the first time in 1998.

Records brought before the court showed that in a two-year period between 1994 and 1996 around �2m was removed from company accounts.