Inn Collection Group, which is owned by Alchemy Partners, has secured an additional £10m of funding from OakNorth to double its portfolio in Northumberland, County Durham and Teesside from 9 to 21 sites (and 271 to 900 rooms) by 2022.
OakNorth was created to help the UK’s growth businesses and entrepreneurs reach their potential by providing bespoke, no-nonsense debt finance solutions. Stevens & Bolton has acted for OakNorth on a number of private equity sponsor backed finance transactions during the past 12 months, including OakNorth’s original financing of the Inn Collection Group in June 2018.
Stuart Blair, debt finance director at OakNorth, commenting on the new funding noted: “The north east experienced record-breaking levels of tourism in 2018, according to figures from Visit England. The number of visitors was up across all the northern powerhouse regions but the north east, where most of The Inn Collection Group’s sites are based, recorded the largest rises. The fact the group has managed to secure backing from such an established private equity firm as Alchemy Partners speaks of the quality of the management team and its ambitious and strategic growth plans. So we were delighted when the group returned to us for the additional £10m loan, which we were able to complete in short order. Stevens & Bolton supported us throughout providing commercial, technically excellent and timely advice. It was a pleasure working with the S&B team once again and we look forward to continuing to work with S&B in the future.”
Andrew Dodds, managing associate and a member of Stevens & Bolton’s banking & finance team commented: “We are delighted to have played a part in helping OakNorth provide additional funding to the Inn Collection Group. We really enjoyed working with Stuart, Fabien Bonavia (legal) and the rest of the OakNorth team on this exciting transaction”.
The Stevens & Bolton team comprised Andrew Dodds (managing associate), Laura Barrett (associate) and Caroline Carmichael (paralegal).
Andrew Dodds