Z Hotels secures £15m funding for expansion

Z Hotels has secured a £15m loan from OakNorth Bank to support its future growth ambitions.

The ‘compact luxury’ hotel group was founded by Bev King with the launch of Z Soho in 2011.

It has since expanded to 11 sites in the capital and one each in Liverpool, Bath, and Glasgow, offering a total of 1,710 bedrooms.

New funding will be used to refinance the group’s current loan facilities, construct an extra 20 rooms at its 112-bedroom Piccadilly location, develop new lift facilities and a ground floor café.

“Z Hotels’ unique proposition has enabled it to build a broad and diverse portfolio in a relatively short space of time and achieve incredibly high occupancy consistently throughout the year,” said Deepesh Thakrar, senior director of debt finance at OakNorth.

“Their focus on high-quality rooms and a premium visitor experience is demonstrated through its 99% room-led revenue, five-star reviews, and an average occupancy across all its hotels of 96%.

“Further to this, Z Hotel’s resilience to the covid pandemic has been exceptional, with the business now exceeding pre-covid trading levels.”

OakNorth first provided funding to the group in 2018 to support the opening of its compact hotels in London’s Covent Garden, Holborn and Tottenham Court Road.

King added: “With this latest facility from OakNorth, we are moving to work closer with its team and look forward to further growing the Z Hotels brand across the UK, whilst also expanding our site at Piccadilly."