Amber Taverns secures £24m financing to open one new pub every month
The funding is a £2.75m extension of the existing credit facility the company already has with Lloyds Bank.
The Blackpool-based pubco currently operates around 80 pubs across the north of England, the Midlands and North Wales and has said it is now looking to break the £30m sales barrier for the first time after posting sales of £25.4m last year.
Quality offering
"We are on course to own 100 pubs within two years and then we will see just how far we can go after that," Clive Preston, chairman of Amber Taverns, said following the funding announcement.
"At Amber Taverns, we’ve proved conclusively that the wet-led pub can thrive with a quality offering in the right location. We are succeeding by giving our customers what they want – value for money and the best sporting events in some terrific venues."
"As a result, each of our pubs now has an average profit of over £100k per annum," Preston revealed.
Funding hospitality
The new deal, which was accepted under the Government's National Loan Guarantee Scheme (NLGS), is the latest extension of credit the Lancashire-based business has secured from the bank it has had a relationship with since it founded in 2005.
Amber Taverns received additional bank funding and a loan from the company's majority shareholder LGV Capital in November last year.
Preston partly attributed the success of the business to the support it has received from the Liverpool team at its bank.
Ashley Suter, relationship director from Lloyds Bank Wholesale Banking & Markets for Merseyside, North Wales and West Lancashire, said: "We’ve worked with Amber Taverns’ team right from the start and the company continues to flourish in one of the most competitive sectors by ensuring that communities have pubs which they clearly love and keep returning to. We’re actively looking for more entrepreneurial mid-sized companies like Amber Taverns across the region to support their growth ambitions."
For more information and analysis of the funding options available to hospitality business from banks to specialist lenders and private investment to 'crowdfunding', read our recent special feature here.
