New Banking Facilities Agreed

RNS Number:6151R
Honeycombe Leisure PLC
03 November 2003

3 November 2003


                             HONEYCOMBE LEISURE PLC

                         NEW BANKING FACILITIES AGREED


Honeycombe Leisure PLC ("Honeycombe" or "the Company"), the leading North
West-based pub company is pleased to announce that new banking facilities have
been agreed with their existing bankers, Bank of Scotland.  The principal terms
of these new facilities are as follows:



1. Core borrowings

The facility comprises of #32 million of term loans available to 30 April 2006
and working capital facilities of #1million.



2. Additional facility

Bank of Scotland has provided an additional facility that has allowed Honeycombe
to payoff two fixed rate hedging instruments inherited under the acquisition of
Devonshire in March 2001. This will allow the company to benefit from low
interest costs in the short term and in the anticipation of rates remaining
below 6.25%, the removal of these fixed rate instruments is expected to be of
considerable material benefit to the company. The actual cash cost of these
instruments in the first half of the year to 26 October 2003 was #195,000.



Gearing

The company continues to make good progress in reducing its overall level of
gearing and over the last two years gearing has gone down from 313% to 194%.  An
independent professional valuation of Honeycombe's trading estate fully supports
existing book values and three-quarters of the estate, in terms of value, is
made up of freehold sites.



Sandy Anderson, Chairman, commented:

"The Board is very pleased with Bank of Scotland's continued support of
Honeycombe and this improved facility is a demonstrable measure of confidence in
the company's progress in reducing its overall level of gearing and in its
development of increased income and earnings from running sites owned
externally."


Enquiries to:

Honeycombe Leisure PLC
James Baer/Bryan Wardman,                             Tel: [phone]
Joint Chief Executives

Holborn
Tarquin Edwards/Chris Steele                          Tel: [phone]




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