Soccer club Tottenham among firms to tap virus loan scheme

LONDON (AP) — British Airways, Marks & Spencer and even Premier League soccer club Tottenham Hotspur are among 53 big companies to take advantage of a special coronavirus loan scheme from the Bank of England to tide them over during the pandemic.

The central bank revealed Thursday for the first time the list of companies that have taken up its COVID Corporate Financing Facility, a scheme designed for big companies with sizeable operations in the U.K.

The biggest single loan of 1 billion pounds ($1.25 billion) went to German chemical company BASF. British Airways, via its parent group International Airlines Group, borrowed 300 million pounds, while Marks & Spencer borrowed 260 million pounds. Tottenham has borrowed 175 million pounds.

The facility is one of many measures that the central bank and the Treasury have put in place to assist businesses through the disruption caused by the outbreak and the lockdown. Under the scheme, the bank buys the short term debt of firms that are assessed to make a “material contribution” to the U.K. economy.

Many of the companies that took up the facility are in sectors that have seen business come to a virtual standstill.

Chief among these is the airlines sector, which has laid off thousands of staff as planes are grounded. Alongside British Airways, easyJet, Ryanair and Wizz Air have borrowed hundreds of millions of pounds.

Train and bus operators, such as National Express and Stagecoach, have used the scheme. Even the National Trust, which looks after the nation’s natural and historic sites, borrowed 30 million pounds.

Car manufacturers, including Honda, Nissan and Toyota, have also borrowed 1 billion pounds collectively.

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