The owner of a much loved north-east hotel has admitted that abandoning plans to sell up has cost him around £1million.
Stewart Spence, owner of the five-star Marcliffe Hotel and Spa at Pitfodels, said the long drawn out saga over its future led to lost business and a £167,045 bill for staff redundancies in the year to 30 September 2014.
In March the Mr Spence revealed the hotel was to continue its operations to wide public fanfare. He had initially revealed plans to shut up shop after a more-than 50-year career in the hospitality industry in 2013, promising a year of celebration of the venue until it closed at the end of 2014.
Figures filed at Companies House showed that turnover grew 1.5% to to £7.57million in the year to the end of September, but pre-tax profits fell 23% to £582,613.
“Last year involved a lot of redundancies,” said Mr Spence.
“We did enjoy an increase in turnover which was great but the reduction in profit was because of redundancies, because we were due to be closing.”
Mr Spence had been due to sell the North Deeside Road site to housebuilder Stewart Milne, who planned to demolish the hotel and build executive flats in its place.
But in March the hotelier announced that both parties had “walked away” from the deal in mutual agreement amid public pleas for the hotel to stay open.
The Stewart Milne Group (SMG) had been negotiating to acquire the property after earlier plans tabled by Gibson McCartney for a £90million office complex were withdrawn. SMG then bought the Gibson McCartney business for £2million.
“The collapse of the deal has been very costly for me,” he said.
“Between redundancy and lost business is is probably going to cost me about £1million, which is hard to take. I’ve never lost money in my life before.”
He confirmed he and his three sons continue to own the hotel, although he revealed it was the tragedy of the death of his daughter Jackie at the age of 35 that had first prompted him to consider retirement.
“My daughter would have run it but she died of cancer in 2009.
“After she died I decided I would get everything in order. Then when these people came along to do the deal it seemed the right way to exit. I thought it was the right thing to do after losing my daughter. She was larger than life and loved the business.”
Currently the hotel is undergoing a “substantial” refurbishment.
When Mr Spence revealed that the Marcliffe would keep its doors open, the hotel was inundated with bookings, including £300,000 worth of inquiries in just two days.