An estimated £10m in Covid-19 money has been earmarked for the private developer of the Game of Thrones Studio Tour, it can be revealed.
nd the developer of the still-to-open attraction outside Banbridge has also received a further £3.5m from two Government-backed investment funds.
The Covid money, in the form of a loan, was allocated by the Department for the Economy (DfE) after the developer, Linen Mill Studios, approached Tourism NI and told the agency it could not access money from commercial lenders due to the pandemic’s impact on tourism.
Details were included in a September NI Audit Office report on estimated Covid allocated spending in the first near six months of the pandemic, but not previously publicly revealed. No public announcement of the proposed loan was made by Tourism NI, DfE or the developers.
The Game of Thrones Studio, currently under construction on the Castlewellan Road, is described in multiple reports as a £24m project with the potential to attract 600,000 visitors a year. There is no opening date.
If approved, the DfE says the money will be disbursed under the financial transaction capital (FTC) programme, which is funded through money directly provided by the UK Government.
A Department of Finance report on FTC, also in September, does not list any money allocated for the project. It does list separate funding of an estimated £10m in FTC funding, described in the NIAO report as money to “provide support to early stage businesses that are adversely impacted by Covid-19”.
If the deal is finalised, and it is structured as FTC, it will be the largest loan to a single entity in the programme’s eight-year history outside two to Ulster University and one to Queen’s.
Linen Mill Studios, owned by Holywood-headquartered John Hogg and Company, announced in October it had secured £3.5m of funding through two Government-backed investment funds.
The company agreed a £2m loan from the Growth Finance Fund and a £1.5m loan from Growth Loan Fund II, both of which are managed by Belfast-based Whiterock Finance.
The Growth Finance Fund is a £30m fund backed by The British Business Bank, Invest NI and the Northern Ireland local government pension fund. It is “designed to support established SMEs seeking access to growth finance”.
The Growth Loan Fund II is a £30m loan fund partly financed by the EU and backed by Invest NI. It is designed to “support established SMEs seeking access to growth finance”.
The Linen Mill Studios said it was unable to comment at this time on the £10m loan.
The DfE said the developer of the tour currently under construction “approached Tourism NI for loan finance of up to £10m as they could not access a commercial loan from the banks due to the impact of Covid-19 on the global tourism industry”.
The DfE did not respond when asked how a still unopened attraction would be affected by the collapse in global tourism, or reveal when the company approached Tourism NI.
“All financial support provided by Tourism NI is subject to the approval of a business case and that process is ongoing,” a DfE spokesperson said. “Financial Transaction Capital (FTC) is funding allocated to the Executive by the UK Government.
“FTC can be deployed only as a loan to, or equity investment in, a capital project delivered by a private sector entity. This is the basis of the budget that has been made available in this instance subject to approvals,” the spokesperson added.
“The NIAO report included all initiatives for which budget had been made available. There has been no spend to date of the £10m FTC budget allocated to this initiative as the application is still subject to a number of approvals.”
The NIAO report also revealed that “construction on the new Game of Thrones Studio Tour was halted due to Covid-19 in March”.
It added: “Having certainty around the financial investment will give confidence that the construction will recommence when it is safe to do so and the economic benefits of this can be realised.”
Belfast Telegraph
