LEISURE business Minoan Group has negotiated a further extension to the £5 million debt facility it secured from Jersey-based Hillside International Holdings in October 2013 as it continues to await the sale of its travel division.
This is the fourth time the loan term has been extended and while the interest rate on the debt has been held steady at 10 per cent, the loan itself has passed to a business called Zachary Asset Holding and can now be called in at any time.
Read more: Minoan reverses deal with mystery investor
The loan from Hillside originally came with a three-year term, but that was later extended to June 2017.
In June 2017 the term was again extended, this time to December 2017, and in December 2017 it was further extended to June 2018. At that point the interest rate charged on the debt increased from eight per cent a year to 10%.
At the beginning of this month the firm announced that it was in “constructive discussions” with Hillside regarding a further extension to the facility, adding that the sale of its travel arm was “expected to provide the funds” to settle the facility.
Yesterday Minoan announced that the term on the loan had been extended to the end of August but that it could be called in "on demand".
Read more: Minoan ponders sale of travel division
Minoan confirmed that it was looking to offload its travel division last December, days after announcing an extension to its loan from Hillside.
If the sale of its travel division - which includes agency Stewart Travel – completes, Minoan’s remaining business interests will be as developer of a luxury resort on the Greek island of Crete.
While that had been held up for several years by legal wranglings, Minoan chairman Christopher Egleton said in June last year that a decision from the Greek Supreme Court cleared the way for the project to proceed.
In the year to October 2017 the travel arm reported robust accounts, with sales and pre-tax profits both increasing.
Read more: Minoan to raise cash as sale of travel arm is delayed
In the accounts Mr Egleton said that “the decision to dispose of the travel business has not been taken lightly”.
“The two main drivers of this decision have been the fact that we were unable to expand the business as fast as we had intended [...] and, with the advent of the grant of outline planning consent in Greece, the need to concentrate our efforts on creating value without a significant debt overhang with its concomitant costs,” he added.
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