OakNorth funds £7.5m whisky warehousing expansion

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Royal Elizabeth Yard

OakNorth, the digital bank for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs, has provided a £7.5m loan to support the next phase of growth at Royal Elizabeth Yard at Queensferry.

Formerly a World War II naval storage depot, the 50-acre Royal Elizabeth Yard is being repurposed into Scotland’s largest independent whisky warehousing site.

Located less than seven miles from Edinburgh city centre and close to key transport links including Edinburgh Airport and the Queensferry Crossing, the site offers distillers and whisky investors a secure, strategically located storage solution within Scotland’s Central Belt.

Royal Elizabeth Yard has planning consent to develop up to 830,000 sq. ft. of bonded warehousing, with the capacity to mature over 1.1 million casks once fully developed.

The site is being repositioned from traditional industrial use to a fully managed bonded whisky maturation facility, providing long-term storage, handling and compliance services for third-party whisky producers and cask owners.

The £7.5m loan from OakNorth will be used to refinance existing debt and support the conversion of several existing sheds into bonded whisky maturation warehouses, enabling the business to meet growing demand for high-quality independent storage capacity.

Alan Wright, Head of Operations at Royal Elizabeth Yard, said:

“This funding from OakNorth is a significant milestone for Royal Elizabeth Yard as we continue to develop the site into a world-class bonded whisky maturation facility.

Demand for independent storage capacity remains strong, and this facility gives us the flexibility to invest in the infrastructure required to support distillers and cask owners over the long term.

Fraser and the team at OakNorth took the time to understand both the asset and the operational model, and we’re pleased to be partnering with them as we progress the next stage of the site’s evolution.”

Fraser McPhail, Senior Director of Debt Finance at OakNorth, added:

“Royal Elizabeth Yard is a unique asset with a compelling long-term strategy, underpinned by strong fundamentals in the Scotch whisky sector.

The site’s scale, location and extensive planning consents position it well to address the structural shortage of independent bonded warehousing capacity in Scotland.

In addition to supporting the refurbishment of existing buildings, we have a strong appetite to support the consented new-build development over time, enabling Royal Elizabeth Yard to continue expanding its storage capacity.

This provides distillers and whisky investors with the flexibility to grow inventory without the need to deploy significant capital into developing their own storage infrastructure.”

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