Debt-laden Saga turns to Lazard to shore up balance sheet

Saga, the financial services and travel services provider to the over-50s, has drafted in a team of City bankers to help shore up its finances, weeks after tapping its chairman for a £35m loan.

Saga’s cruise ship the Spirit of Discovery

Sky News has learnt that Saga has been working with Lazard to advise on prospective ways to strengthen its balance sheet, including reviving the sale of its insurance underwriting division.

City sources said that it had also been examining possible alternatives relating to the financing of its cruise ships, Spirit of Adventure and Spirit of Discovery.

Lazard is said to have presented its review of the company’s earlier work on debt refinancing and restructuring options to Saga’s board in recent days.

Other options, the details of which were unclear on Monday, are also understood to be under consideration.

The evaluation of new corporate activity by Saga’s board comes ahead of a £150m bond repayment which is due in May next year.

In its interim results announced in September, Saga’s balance sheet was saddled with net debt of more than £650m.

While the company’s shares have staged a mini-recovery in the last 12 months, rising by nearly a quarter, it still has a market capitalisation of less than £175m.

Roger De Haan, the company’s former chief executive, was parachuted back in to lead a turnaround in the summer of 2020, investing £100m as part of a broader capital-raising.

That came after it spurned a takeover bid from private equity investors.

At the start of this year, it unveiled a global website called Saga Exceptional, aimed at providing advice and services to over-50s consumers.

Euan Sutherland, the former Co-op Group and Superdry boss who now runs Saga, said in January: “We are laying out our plans as we pivot Saga for growth and sharpen our focus on building the largest and fastest-growing business for older people in the UK.

“This is all part of the wider plan to make Saga the leading Superbrand for, what we call, the ‘Experience Generation’.”

Bank of England should have its remit ‘pruned’ alongside forecasting shake-up

Winter fuel payment: Who is eligible, how much is it and when is it paid?

A large part of the company’s current travails relate to conditions in the motor insurance market, which it said had been impacting its ability to generate cash and reduce debt.

Saga had also been in talks to sell its underwriting business to Open, an Australian insurer, but failed to finalise a transaction.

In September, it said it “believes that greater value could be generated once conditions within the insurance market improve”.

“We will, however, continue to evaluate our options as the landscape evolves.”

Mr De Haan, the son of the company’s founder, had already lent Saga £50m before extending that to an £85m facility earlier in the autumn.

Shares in Saga were trading on Monday at around 122.7p.

A Saga spokeswoman declined to comment.