Mark Williams is the CEO of a new organisation called Keystone Brewing Group which has recently taken control of a set of financially struggling breweries including Black Sheep and has eyes on other acquisitions as part of ambitious plans to build a £100m-a-year revenue business by 2028 .
came with a Government guarantee to banks to cover 80 per cent of the value, with RLS loans having 70 per cent. They were available at both fixed and variable rates and Williams says that Black Sheep was stung by the latter as the Bank of England base rate was repeatedly ratcheted up from 0.1 per cent in November 2021 to 5.25 per cent by August 2023, where it remains today. By the time Black Sheep went into administration in May 2023, £2.
loan and all £1.6m of the RLS loan payments remained outstanding and the administration process means taxpayers will end up covering much of those debts. There will undoubtedly be many other small and medium-sized businesses out there placed into similar difficulties. The most recent Covid-19 loan guarantee schemes performance data for shows the Government has already paid out £9.