Fiduciam provides £1.18m loan to fund Cornish hotel beyond Covid
Fiduciam, the institutionally funded short-term lender to SMEs and entrepreneurs, has just completed a £1.18m loan to finance a popular hotel in Cornwall. The loan which falls under the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS), will enable the hotel to continue operating until the end of 2022.
2020 has been a year of contrasts at Hustyns Hotel and Spa in Wadebridge. After closing for three months during the lockdown, it reopened in July to experience its highest demand for rooms in recent years, only to be affected once more by this second national lockdown.
Fiduciam’s loan provides Hustyns Hotel and Spa with secure commercial funding for 24 months. Financing costs have been reduced thanks to CBILS, and the absence of early repayment charges gives the borrower added flexibility.
Ravi Gupta of Hustyns Hotel and Spa, comments, “Covid-19 has posed unique challenges to the hospitality industry – it’s been a real year of volatility. 2020 was expected to be a significant year as we had invested in the hotel with a refurbished restaurant and a new ‘glamping’ offering coming on stream.
“We know that we have a good business model and strong demand, but after strong revenue and profit growth in 2019, the lockdown meant we experienced a difficult spring and early summer 2020 when we couldn’t let out rooms or lodges. Once the lockdown was lifted, we had to immediately scale up operations and staff levels for full occupancy. The loan from Fiduciam means that we cannot only weather this latest lockdown, but we can make the investments we want to into our resort and know that our business’s future is secure for the next two years.”
Marc Morris, underwriter at Fiduciam, says, “Hustyns is the perfect fit for our CBILS offering. Pre-Covid the hotel was performing well and deleveraging. The CBILS loan provides 12 months of space for Hustyns to maintain resilience and rebuild its accounts before the borrower returns to servicing interest. In the medium term, the borrower plans to refinance onto a term product.”
Fiduciam has been accredited by the British Business Bank to offer loans under the CBILS. Delivered through British Business Bank accredited lenders, CBILS is designed to support the continued provision of finance to UK smaller businesses during the Covid-19 outbreak. The scheme enables lenders to provide facilities of up to £5m to smaller businesses across the UK who are experiencing lost or deferred revenues, leading to disruptions to their cashflow.
All economic downturns cause significant economic scarring in addition to any structural change. Short-term liquidity problems faced by even the best placed firms can quickly become solvency concerns, particularly as the result of an asymmetric shock such as a pandemic. Within this setting, Fiduciam continues to see pro-active businesses seek robust provision for their liquidity requirements over a 12 to 24-month time horizon.