Hotel Chocolat secures £25m coronavirus loan as disruption expected until end of 2020
Hotel Chocolat announced this morning it has secured a £25m coronavirus large business interruption loan (CLBIL) as it warned that the pandemic could continue to impact trading throughout the rest of 2020.
The high street retailer said it had agreed a £35m revolving credit facility with Lloyds Bank, replacing its previous £10m overdraft facility.
The £25m secured under the government’s coronavirus scheme expires in December next year, and a seperate £10m facility will expire at the end of this year.
Hotel Chocolat also raised £22m through an equity placing last month.
“The group has modelled a scenario with business disruption continuing throughout 2020, and these facilities are intended to provide more than sufficient liquidity in this event,” it said in a statement this morning.
Hotel Chocolat said it was “encouraged” by online trading performance over the key Easter period following the closure of all of its physical stores due to the lockdown from 23 March,
Online sales did not fully mitigate the total retail sales loss over the three-week Easter period, however Hotel Chocolat said it will continue “to explore further avenues for online growth whilst working safely”.
Hotel Chocolat chief executive and co-founder Angus Thirlwell said: “The financial headroom gives us greater resilience against ongoing disruption and enables us to move onwards with longer-term growth opportunities.”
He added: “Every day at Easter the online demand exceeded the quantity of orders we could accept, due to the requirements to ensure safe working, combined with the short adjustment period.
“With the plans we are putting in place over the next months, we aim to be able to switch the vast majority of demand to online should the need arise in the future.”