Hotel Chocolat secures £35m credit facility after seeing "material impact" on Easter trading

A UK confectioner has announced that it has secured a £35m revolving credit facility to support it through pandemic restrictions.

Hotel Chocolat, which trades internationally, reported today that the credit facility replaces its previous £10m agreement with Lloyds bank.

The company also said today that it has seen a “material impact” on trading due to the closure of its stores over the Easter period, which is one of its largest seasonal peaks.

It said that it has redirected its business online, but that online revenues have not fully mitigated its retail sales loss.

Angus Thirlwell, co-founder and CEO of Hotel Chocolat, commented: “Hotel Chocolat is a strong brand with differentiated products, a loyal customer base, and a vertically integrated direct-to-consumer business mode, built for agility.

“It is a reflection of these attributes that we have been able to add additional banking cover to the over-subscribed equity placement in March.

“The financial headroom gives us greater resilience against ongoing disruption and enables us to move onwards with longer-term growth opportunities.

“I would like to thank our team for their creativity and determination to swiftly adapt so we can continue to serve our community of customers, who tell us about the joy of receiving an unexpected delivery of our chocolate with a personal message from someone they love but can’t go and see, and the happy ritual of passing a box of chocolates around their lock-in household in the evening.

“One of the benefits of being an employee of Hotel Chocolat is getting a 50 per cent discount on our products.

“Back in March we made the NHS and emergency services honorary members of our family while they work so hard for us all and have shipped many tens of thousands of parcels to help keep morale and stamina up.

“Our market leadership in digital and subscription chocolate is more valuable than ever and we will accelerate the planned innovations and investments behind these models.

“Plans are in progress to re-open our physical locations when appropriate, with adjustments in place to make shopping with us safe and pleasurable again.

“Every day at Easter the online demand exceeded the quantity of orders we could accept, due to the requirements to ensure safe working, combined with the short adjustment period.

“With the plans we are putting in place over the next months, we aim to be able to switch the vast majority of demand to online should the need arise in the future.”