Secure Income begins action to recover rent from Travelodge

Secure Income REIT responded to recent press coverage around the Travelodge chain of budget hotels on Monday, confirming that the outstanding quarter's rent due from Travelodge amounted to 6.4% of its annual rental income.

The AIM-traded real estate investment trust said discussions with the hotel chain’s senior team had been ongoing for a number of weeks, and while they were yet to provide any proposals for dealing with the outstanding amounts due, they had indicated that a plan should be forthcoming.

“While we are extremely aware of and sensitive to the challenges facing so many businesses today in this unprecedented pandemic, Travelodge has over 580 hotels with more than 44,500 rooms and recently reported record earnings of £129.1m with net debt of around £311m,” the Secure Income board said in its statement.

“It is owned by large, multinational investment businesses in Goldman Sachs, Avenue Capital and GoldenTree.

“We are disappointed and surprised that they have not yet presented a proposal.”

In light of that, Secure Income said it had already “reluctantly” initiated actions to recover the debt, but remained hopeful that the matter could still be settled prior to those options being fully pursued.

At 1148 BST, shares in Secure Income REIT were down 8.15% at 312.3p.