Troubled training provider wins last minute funding reprieve

Learndirect, the troubled training provider that has a support centre in Leicester, has reportedly won a last-minute reprieve from its lenders after a troubled summer.

Reports from Sky News says the firm, which moved to Colton Square in Leicester in 2010 and created around 250 jobs and provides training services for the D2N2 LEP, had been rocked by a damning Ofsted report, which called the £171m-turnover company “inadequate”.

Sky News says that a syndicate that includes Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland has agreed to extend a £5m working capital facility to Learndirect ahead of a Tuesday 7 November deadline for filing its accounts at Companies House.

The firm is expected to post losses of around £70, says the report.

LearnDirect, which is owned by private equity firm LDC, has been close to collapse since the summer and has been warned that funding from the Department of Education will disappear from July next year. However, it will still receive £45m from the Education and Skills Funding Agency that will be used to wind down part of its business ahead of that deadline.

In July, Learndirect said it would keep its support centre in Leicester open despite its chief executive admitting that one in ten of its staff are facing redundancy.

The firm has multiple centres across the East Midlands.