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Heartwood Collection, the UK hospitality and pub group, has secured £50m additional funding to support its rollout into pubs-with-rooms and freehold pubs.
As part of this funding, a new banking facility has been agreed with OakNorth Bank, the neobank for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs.
Funds advised by Alchemy Partners have committed £50m to-date and Alchemy Partners is supporting the group’s rollout, with an expected further £50m investment into the group to support its growth.
Heartwood has immediate access to this new funding and with the support of OakNorth and Alchemy, the group will continue to focus on acquiring pubs-with-rooms with the ambition of reaching at least 60 sites by June 2027.
As part of this, Heartwood has the aim of providing nearly 500 boutique bedrooms in the same time period.
This will mean the creation of a further 1,500 jobs up and down the UK, representing a significant contribution to local economies, and take the total number of Heartwood employees to 2,700.
The funding will also be used specifically to acquire new freehold pub sites in the right UK locations.
The company continues to seek out active opportunities to buy “characterful” pubs – where it can renovate and refurbish where required.
Heartwood said that the funding comes on the back of strong recent trading, a recent rebranding, and progress in acquiring new sites.
The group has already completed the acquisition of 11 freehold sites over the past twelve months and is close to completing a further five in the summer of 2023.
Richard Ferrier, managing director of Heartwood Collection, said: “This additional support from OakNorth and Alchemy is testament to the strength of the business that the team at Heartwood is building. It will enable us to build on our success to date as we focus on growing Heartwood Collection into the UK’s leading premium pubs and pubs-with-rooms business.”
Mark Derry, chairman of Heartwood Collection, added: “This new funding will be deployed for acquiring additional freehold sites, and it will underpin our target of reaching over 60 sites and 500 rooms over the next four years. While ambitious, we are confident that our combination of highly skilled chefs, warm hospitality and character-filled pubs leaves us ideally placed within a market which is considerably underserved.”
