Search for
Search for
Search forPM in vow to entrepreneur
Friday, November 21, 2008, 09:30
When the credit crunch hit, Bernie Taylor, who runs the Mulberry Pub Company, in Melton, turned to her bank, HBOS, for help.
A 2005 businesswoman of the year, she said she had never missed an interest payment, never exceeded her overdraft or broken any of the rules of her bank.
However, rather than offer her support, she said the bank started calling in debts, threatening the business, her staff's livelihoods and even her home.
She said it was all the worse as the same bank was recently handed a lifeline from the Government in the form of billions of pounds of tax-payers' cash.
Her story has received national interest after Tory party leader David Cameron brought it up in Parliament. Now, the Prime Minister has said he will look in to the situation personally.
Mrs Taylor, a 50-year-old mum of two from Burbage, said: "Throughout this situation I think the bank has behaved in an incredibly underhand way. HBOS has been given all this cash despite the fact that they were questionably handing out so many unviable mortgages.
"I feel as though HBOS are forcing us into administration so they can make their balance sheets look good."
Two years ago, the group ran four pubs, but bad summer weather and the credit crunch saw them lose £200,000. They lost a further £75,000 when they had to walk away from the lease on one of the pubs.
She said HBOS advanced them £150,000 on the condition that she sold two of her remaining three leaseholds – which she did at a 60 per cent loss.
A chunk of the £150,000 was eaten up by HBOS transaction charges and the bank would not let her keep the proceeds of the sales to put back into her final pub – The Red House, in Nether Broughton, near Melton.
As HBOS got into trouble, Mrs Taylor claimed the bank became more difficult to deal with – and refused to let her re-mortgage her home.
She said it then withdrew her company's overdraft and removed takings from the business account, resulting in cheques bouncing and more charges.
Mrs Taylor said: "Our final pub is still a profitable business – if HBOS allowed us to refinance we could move it forward."
An HBOS spokesman said: "Bank of Scotland has been very supportive of its customer, Mulberry Pub Company.
"We have worked tremendously hard with Mulberry to explore all possible solutions for taking the company forward."
Comment on this story