Flight Club owner secures £60m facility
Red Engine will use the funds to continue with its expansion plans.
The business behind the experiential bars Flight Club Darts and Electric Shuffle has announced that it has secured a new £60m facility from Santander, HSBC and Barclays to support its global expansion plans.
The total Red Engine and partners estate currently stands at 25 venues – 17 owner-operated and 8 partner-owned by State of Play Hospitality (Flight Club in North America) and Night Owl (Flight Club in Australia).
Helped by the new finance, its portfolio is set to increase to 33 in 2024, with a further eight sites this year – four owned and four partner-owned.
Red Engine will open Electric Shuffle Manchester and New York, and Flight Club Liverpool and Oxford, while the franchise partners opening pipeline for 2024 consists of Flight Club Philadelphia, Washington, Sydney and Melbourne.
Continuing the journey
"For the last nine years, everything we have done has been with our customers in mind," says Ross Shepley-Smith, CFO at Red Engine. "Our in-house game developers, our interior and design teams, our venue teams of chefs, bartenders and everything in between, have strived to give people the best experience possible. It’s because of this that we’ve built such a loyal customer following, and it’s these customers that have made it possible to grow as we have done. Our mission has always been to make groups of friends everywhere ridiculously happy, and we couldn’t be more excited to continue that journey with this new facility."
The announcement follows the recent news that Red Engine-owned venues achieved sales of £67m last year, while Red Engine and partner venue sales combined exceeded £100m.
Flight Club Darts and Electric Shuffle launched in 2015 and 2019 respectively.
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