The Sefton Group is poised to go private as it claims it is preparing for recovery after the ’severe storm’ sparked in the last 15 months by the Covid-19 crisis.

But chief executive Brett Martin has denied suggestions the group is facing the decline of a hospitality empire in the island.

Mr Martin said: ’No, I think it is repositioning, it is not a decline.

’It takes time to do these things because the hole was very deep back in 2009. He said in 2009 there were £90m or more of financial liabilities but the group had managed to take more than £85m out of the debt in the last decade.’

The Sefton was bailed out by the government after it ran into trouble in 2013. It had big projects, such as the refurbishment of the Castle Mona Hotel and a scheme to build a development called the Wave on the Summerland site. But they failed.

Mr Martin said: ’We had to fix the basics of the company, which we had done before the pandemic struck. The pandemic set us back. All hospitality companies have had a dreadful time this last 15 months.

’Fundamentally we had cleared the decks and got rid of all the legacies inherited from the previous management. We got that right.

’The next step was to start the build-back of the company.’

The proposed move to the town centre was ’still very much’ in the strategic plan. And the first part of that is very much focused on moving the casino, subject to approval from government.

In a circular to the firm’s 750 shareholders, chairman Clive Parrish predicts ’substantial losses’ will be reported in the accounts.

Shareholders have been told that an extraordinary general meeting will take place on Friday over a proposal to re-register the group which effectively means it would change from being a public company to a private one.

They have been asked to send their votes in on the issue by proxy which must be received by tomorrow (Wednesday) not later than 10am at the Sefton Hotel.

The chairman says there are advantages which the board says will provide the company and its directors with ’far greater flexibility than is presently the case and, over the next few years as we recover from the pandemic and seek to modernise the group’s facilities, that flexibility could be crucially important’.

Since it incorporation in 1923, the group’s holding company, Sefton Group has been a public company and as such its accounts were in the public domain.

Mr Parrish writes: ’We have been able to reduce costs and cut back on management payroll, but we are still appreciably below break-even.’

He adds that the group is ’in a much better position to weather the storm than it would have been a few years ago’ but ’nevertheless the storm is severe’.