Samantha McClary
£21m Bloomsbury hotel included in package as Atlantic seeks exit
Andy Ruhan has put the 28 remaining hotels of the Thistle portfolio that he bought from Orb Estates up for sale at £400m.
The portfolio — which is owned equally by Birmingham-based property entrepreneur Ruhan, Morgan Stanley and Thistle Hotels owner BIL – includes the 138-bedroom Bloomsbury hotel, WC1, which is valued at about £21m.
Ruhan bought 37 Thistle hotels from Orb for a total of £700m, including £155m in cash and £531m in securitised debt, in 2002. But since buying the portfolio, the value of the hotels has sunk from £788m to £447m.
Sources said the market was unlikely to react positively to the hotel offer.
“The hotels are all subject to 30-year management contracts with Thistle, which means the market isn’t going to look at this favourably. People will have to pay Thistle an awful lot of money to break the contract, which means it’s not particularly attractive, especially at that price,” said one insider.
Ruhan’s investment company, Atlantic Hotels, has gradually been moving the hotels out of Thistle’s management.
Five country house-style properties are no longer run by Thistle, one has been sold, and last month, Paul Bloomfield bought three of Ruhan’s central London hotels – the Thistle Lancaster Gate, Thistle Kensington Park and Thistle Kensington Palace –for £150m.
Interest in the group is likely to come from traditional hotel investors such as Rotch, Delancey, Nikko and Lehman Brothers.
Ruhan, Thistle and Savills declined to comment.
