Business Briefs: Forte losses grow

LOSSES deepened at Sir Rocco Forte's luxury hotel group, according to the latest figures filed at Companies House.

He has blamed start-up costs at two new properties in Italy and the Czech Republic for losses plunging from 5.6 million to 25m in the year ending last April.

However, he is believed to have opened talks with Lloyds Banking Group to renegotiate the group's debt and has paid down some of it by selling an interest in Le Richemond in Geneva for about 50m.

Forte owns the Balmoral in Edinburgh and Brown's in London. He set up RF Hotels soon after losing control of the original Forte empire in the mid-nineties in a bitter takeover battle with Granada. It is understood that trading has improved in recent months.

The Rocco Forte Hotel Abu Dhabi, the first Rocco Forte property in the Emirates, opens this year.

SOUTER BUYS INTO IDO

TRANSPORT tycoon Brian Souter has taken a stake in the Istanbul ferry company IDO through his Souter Investments vehicle alongside three Turkish partners.

Souter Investments will have a 30 per cent stake in the consortium which is paying 527m for IDO.

It is thought Souter invested more than 150m in the deal which adds to a fast-growing portfolio of investments by the Perth-based chief executive and founder of bus and rail group Stagecoach.

Souter Investments has stakes in 120 companies with a collective value of more than 400m, including Falkirk-based bus builder Alexander Dennis and the insurance company esure.

4BN TRADE DEFICIT

BRITAIN'S trade deficit is expected to have widened to 4 billion in February after narrowing sharply to an 11-month low of 3bn in January.

Figures out on Tuesday are likely to show that high prices for oil, commodities and food have pushed up import values. The bigger trade gap is likely to add to fears over the UK's manufacturing sector, which economists estimate may have reached a peak after staging a surprise resurgence over the past year.

The figures for February will also shed doubt over first quarter GDP figures - it had been hoped that net trade made a significant contribution to economic expansion during the first three months of the year.