Jamie Oliver spurned a multimillion-pound deal to rescue his restaurant empire after being asked to write off his loans to it, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

The celebrity chef, whose business collapsed on Tuesday, rejected an offer from a specialist turnaround fund.

The parent company elected to put his eponymous UK network of eateries, as well as steakhouse Barbecoa and Fifteen London into administration instead, leading to the loss of 1,000 jobs and putting a further 300 at risk.

Mr Oliver said he was “devastated” and “deeply saddened” at the failure.

Under the proposal from German investment firm Aurelius, Mr Oliver would have had to write off around £13m of loans. He was not asked to inject...