Clock ticking as Plymouth company ordered to pay off massive debt

William Telford

21 January 2025 at 1:00 am·2-min read

The company which is selling Plymouth’s King Point Marina has been given new deadlines to pay off £8.69m it owes its bank. The clock is ticking for Sutton Harbour Group Plc (SHG), which must make payments to National Westminster Bank Plc by the end of March.

The company, which in December 2024 announced a half year loss of nearly £1m, was last year told to reduce the amount it owes to the bank by £10m by March 2025. It started a “debt reduction plan” which included the sale of assets.

In an update to investors the AIM-listed company today said NatWest as has agreed to amend its bank loan repayment dates. It means SHG must pay it £1.5m by March 20 this year and £7.190m by March 31.

This is “to align with the company's expected timeline for asset disposals”, SHG said. The company has already made loan repayments totalling £1.445m, reducing current total bank debt to £20.255m

The loan repayments were possible because three investment properties were sold, yielding 94% of their latest valuation before selling costs.

SHG, which has the long lease on the former Plymouth airport site, has been battered by high interest rates, legal costs on court battles with the Environment Agency and Plymouth City Council, and losses from building a huge block of flats at Sutton Harbour., which resulted in “unsustainable” debts and the need to refinance with NatWest bank.

The NatWest loan, in place until the end of 2026, sets out debt reduction milestones with SHG having to hit them by selling assets, some of which must now be offloaded by the end of March.

NatWest wants the amount it has lent the company reduced to £11.565m which means SHG has to sell six properties in addition to King Point Marina.

In December, SHG said it had received “good interest” in all of the assets it had put on sale, including King Point Marina, which contains the popular The Dock restaurant. The company was targeting a sale of all the assets identified before the financial year end.

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