Rocco Forte hotels group fears default amid bank talks over golf resort Sir Rocco said talks had begun with Unicredit Banca d'Impresa to restructure a €94.7m (£79m) facility after a loan covenant breach following below par trading at the Verdura Resort, which opened two years ago and hosted the Sicilian Open at the weekend. "These things take two to three months," he said. The group is also in talks with an unnamed party to secure a "strategic investment" in the resort, the company added. Delays in securing planning permissions had set back the resort's growth, Sir Rocco added. "Italian bureaucracy is bad but Sicilian bureaucracy is 10 times worse," he said. Accounts filed at Companies House state that if the Italian refinancing is not completed, the group could default on its debts with Lloyds Banking Group subsidiary Bank of Scotland. "In the event that revised long-term facilities are not agreed, this may give rise to Bank of Scotland exercising their rights in the event of default under the group's facilities," the group said. Sir Rocco added: "The Bank of Scotland is fully up to date with the situation and very supportive. We have a big asset base in the business and if we have to inject more capital into Verdura we can. Group sales for the year to April 30 rose £15.9m to £104m and losses fell to £9.6m, down from £24.9m the year before. Hotel revenues in the eight months to December increased 6pc on a like-for-like basis. Hotel profits before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation rose 12pc during the same period. Sir Rocco said: "Trading has been good. We are back to where we were before the [financial] crisis. The luxury market continues to be very strong. Some 25pc of our business comes out of the US - Americans coming to Europe - and that market grew by 14pc last calendar year and continues to grow ahead of that at the moment. The group restructured its loans with Bank of Scotland in May last year, slashing its debts using proceeds from the sale of Le Richmond hotel in Geneva and securing facilities until June 2015.