City Marque, the London luxury serviced apartments operator, has secured investment worth £2.1 million through Santander’s Breakthrough programme, to finance the next phase of its expansion.
City Marque’s customer base comprises predominantly of tourists on leisure visits to London. In five years, Marque has grown to a business with revenue of £5.7 million for the financial year ending March 2014.
The £2.1m funding from Santander’s Breakthrough programme will help the company expand its presence across central London to 500 apartments over the next three years. The company plans to develop its e-commerce and systems infrastructure and build a corporate portal business.
Santander’s funding package includes £1.5 million Growth Capital investment, which is provided on a cashflow basis.
Derek Gallimore, Managing Director and Founder of City Marque, said: “This is an exciting time for City Marque as e-commerce allows us to access a growing consumer base seeking the greater space and comfort of serviced apartments over hotels. Our growing presence in the London market means we can take on more strategic blocks in collaboration with institutional property investors and landlords. This long-term commitment of funding from Santander will provide confidence to our partners and, help us secure a better pipeline of stock on attractive commercial terms.”
Darren Hart, Head of Growth Capital at Santander UK, said: “City Marque has a high level of advanced bookings and a cash flow model that sees over 95 per cent of bookings paid in full prior to arrival. We see this is a stable and scalable business that will visibly benefit from Breakthrough Capital in a short amount of time. The serviced apartment sector is a sub-division of the hotels industry – an area currently experiencing high growth as market awareness amongst online travel agents increases. We are looking forward to working with Derek to ensure his yearly business targets are met.”
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