UPMARKET golf and leisure resort Skibo Castle has seen its losses narrow after increasing turnover from £7.6 million to £8.35m.
That helped pre-tax losses fall slightly from £762,000 to £743,000 in the 12 months to March 31, 2012.
Accounts filed at Companies House were prepared on a going concern basis in spite of Skibo, which is on a 7500 acre estate near Dornoch in Sutherland, having net liabilities of £2.8m.
A statement in the accounts said parent organisation, Bermuda-based Scytherbolle, had indicated it would make funds available to allow Skibo to continue to pay its liabilities as they were due.
The average number of full-time staff rose from 100 to 103 with part-time positions up from 64 to 76. That pushed employee costs up from £3.23m to £3.55m.
Directors' emoluments including pension payments rose from £229,000 to £232,000 with the highest paid receiving the same as the previous year at £126,000.
Net debt was steady at £18.9m.
There has been a castle at Skibo for more than 1000 years but the current building was originally restored and rebuilt by Scots tycoon Andrew Carnegie, when he bought it in 1898.
In 2003 it was sold to private investors who had been members of Skibo's Carnegie Club.
Sunderland football club chairman Ellis Short is understood to be among those involved in Scytherbolle.
Skibo has hosted celebrity weddings including Madonna and Guy Ritchie and Hollywood actress Ashley Judd and Scottish racing driver Dario Franchitti.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article