Natwest and RBS add £150m to Leisure Fund

The fund has now been extended to £300m following the allocation of £162m in the shape of c250 loans since the dedicated scheme was launched at the end of May.

Of the initial £150m, c£90m has been allocated to 96 hotel businesses, c£24m to 52 pub businesses, c£17m to 73 restaurant busineses and c£18m to other leisure groups, such as sports clubs.

The fund has been particularly attractive to mulit-site operators looking to fund their next stage of development, plus businesses looking to refurbish or extend current units.

Incredible interest​

On the pub side, the majority of the groups involved in scheme have been food-led, with funding ranging from £30k to £4m. Last week, Joules completed a £4m funding deal with NatWest which will aid the Shropshire brewer and operator to invest in new pubs and new beers.

Andrew Taylor, head of leisure for Commercial Banking at NatWest and RBS, told M&C Report​: "From day one this fund has attracted incredible interest especially from those who have a scalable model but are finding it hard to secure growth capital to move to their next stage of development. Interest has ranged from branded operation to independent single-site operations.

"We have a good pipeline in place for further investment in the sector, with a decent chunk of that interest coming from London-based operators.”

Regionally, the South West has seen the most interest with around £49.9m, followed by the Midlands and South East of England with £37.4m, the North with £29.7m, London and South East with £35.4m and Scotland with £10.1m.

Taylor said: “The fund has now been running for 20 weeks and we have agreed over 250 loans totalling some £160m. Given lending in the equivalent 20 weeks of 2012 was around £60m this is an incredible step forward which proves that confidence is returning and that NatWest really is supporting SME clients across hotel, restaurant and pub businesses.

Support​

National tourism body VisitEngland were closely involved in the development of the Leisure Fund and are delighted with the response so far.

Visit England’s chief executive James Berresford said: “It is great to see that leisure businesses across the country are taking advantage of this opportunity.

"We worked closely with NatWest and RBS on the creation of the fund. It is vital that our tourism businesses have the opportunity to invest in their products if the industry is to thrive and grow.

"The positive take up of the fund so far demonstrates the industry is hungry to invest and I am delighted that NatWest and RBS has taken such steps to help support the leisure industry.”