A QUICK FINANCIAL AND STATUS UPDATE

Good Digital Day from Balbirnie House. Today, I dream of the day I have the honour of standing on our red carpet, to welcome our brigade back to Balbirnie House. 

Having successfully now processed our March 2020 monthly payroll, our Balbirnie House internal accountant is now working remotely.

Together with our directors, we are already well in progress with HSBC, sourcing funds to see Balbirnie House through to re-opening.

Those funds will be inclusive of making any outstanding supplier payments. 

We can however only continue to pay suppliers, via our usual monthly timeline payments, and all ongoing direct debits in the months ahead, when we are in physical receipt of HSBC funds. We are doing everything in our capabilities, and as quickly as is possible to do so, to make all due payments. 

So please do bear with us. 

We will update as we progress, but please note that HSBC have already told us that we are not at the top of their current priorities (as at last Friday), as they are working with those companies first, who are eg sadly unable to process their own March company payroll.

We also underline that Balbirnie House Hotel Ltd has a Grade A classified 2020 CreditSafe rating, and with current loan to value status under 40%, our directors are fully confident that we will be able to deliver all ongoing payments, and we will very much look forward to re-opening whenever it’s made possible to do so. 

It also occurs today that many potential new future clients, will not wish to make any future wedding venue booking for a wedding, if there is any uncertainty that the company owners and directors are confident in being able to fully re-open their venue, and then sustain future trade. At Balbirnie House we are absolutely confident that it's only a matter of time, until we can successfully re-open. And most importantly of all, we have of course fully retained Balbirnie's entire hotel brigade in place, to do this as well. Our commitment to our brigade ongoing, and enabling all ongoing monthly payroll from our payroll system, is resolute. 

We also highlight, our Special Events department are fully enabled and are working remotely, we are providing prospective new wedding clients with Virtual Tours, and digital face-to-face meetings. We have already taken our first future wedding booking, via 100% virtual process. 

As at June 1st 2020 onwards, and incredibly so, we have 163 weddings booked in the 12 months ahead, and we are working with all clients on a 1 week rolling basis, with 2+ calendar months advance timeline, to re-schedule wedding dates, as required. 

During March 2020, we also took bookings for 16 completely new wedding clients. 

We also mention that despite not being compelled to do so by insurer, we are delivering 24 hr security every day at Balbirnie House, so as to fully protect the 1777 national treasure.

Additionally, all work continues in our gardens, so that when able to re-open, it’s straight back to business as usual. 

Most probably due to how we operate as a hotel, in conjunction with our timeline for liaising with so many future clients, Balbirnie House was Scotland's first hotel to deliver a written Policy and action plan for assisting all future clients. We've delivered four phased updates, my sincere gratitude to everyone who has been involved. 

So as to keep our entire brigade fully appraised of all progress, we have also enabled a ‘Balbirnie Buddies’ Facebook Closed Group for everyone who is on our company payroll. Our directors will be using this to keep the brigade totally abreast re everything we will action in timeline, in preparation for re-opening. 

For main updates and thoughts each day, you can follow via our main twitter feed.

And finally for today, a link through to an article which features Balbirnie House and many of our amazing Scotland hotel sector industry colleagues, via Hotel News Scotland, 'Hope Beyond Closed Doors'

Our thoughts with one and all, in these unprecedented times. 

All best wishes, 

Nicholas Russell MD Balbirnie House 30.3.2020