Weatherspoons Seeks Second Round of Funds To Buy Up British Pubs Hit By COVID-19 Hospitality Crisis

According to the report, the pub firm aimed to raise roughly £93m amid the ongoing crisis which has seen pubs across Britain shutter their doors. The news comes as the United Kingdom battles the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which has badly hit the hospitality industry and forced some businesses to close their doors permanently.

UK pub company Weatherspoons is seeking out funding from shareholders for the second time amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic to survive a wave of fresh lockdown restrictions, a draft report on the firm’s equity placing revealed on late Monday.

The company said it was spending £4.1m each week for its 872 pubs amid the lockdown, and had slashed 6,000 employees from its workforce, adding it suspended share dividends and halved pay to Mr Martin and other non-executives.

The funding would be used to “facilitate the acquisition of new properties, which are likely to be available at favourable prices, as a result of the pandemic,” the report said, adding it was seeking sites in London and properties close to successful pubs.

Strange Times For Weatherspoons

The news comes after Weatherspoons raised £137m in April last year via a share placing amid the first lockdown.

Weatherspoons also announced it had applied for £51.7m in additional government funding and received £48.3m in additional funds from the UK government’s Coronavirus loan programme.

According to company chairman Tim Martin, the ongoing pandemic was having a “severe impact” on Britain’s pub industry.

Net debt for the troubled pub firm remained at £1.1bn along with £139m in liquidity, potentially forcing the company into administration by July, figures cited by the Financial Times revealed.

The news comes after the company urged the government to reconsider fresh lockdown restrictions in late December following the discovery of a new strain of the virus capable of spreading more rapidly. But the pub owner slammed the measures as “politicised government propaganda and statistics”, citing COVID-19 data in Sweden.

The news follows comments from British foreign minister Dominic Raab, who told Sky News the country may hopefully ease on lockdown restrictions by March.

Sourse: sputniknews.com