Lone Star has created a company, Amaris, to own and manage 89 of its UK hotels.
Amaris’s portfolio will include 21 Mercure hotels, three Hilton hotels and 19 Thistle hotels, with a total value of around £1bn and 15,000 bedrooms, making it one of the largest hotel owners in the UK.
Jurys Inn boss John Brennan has been appointed as Amaris’s chief executive, and former Travelodge chief executive Grant Hearn will be non-executive chairman.
It is likely Lone Star will seek to float the business in the medium term.
Lone Star, through Amaris Hospitality, intends to commit more than £100m to the refurbishment, rebranding and transformation of the portfolio.
Amaris Hospitality is working to develop a clear strategy for the enlarged branded portfolio, including the repositioning and rebranding of a number of hotels to Jurys Inn or other brands.
Rothschild has been appointed to advise on the structure of Amaris Hospitality, the strategic review of its portfolio and the roll-out of its business plan.
The remaining hotels will be retained by Lone Star and operate as a portfolio of individual properties trading as The Hotel Collection, led by managing director Peter Manby, and will not form part of Amaris Hospitality in the long term.
Hearn said: “The new group will allow us to leverage the considerable scale and size of this unique portfolio of hotels and brands to accelerate its future growth and development and, we believe, create the UK’s best performing, most exciting hospitality investment group. Through the successful implementation of our strategy in the coming years we expect the business to have a value of more than £2bn.”
Brennan said: “I’m pleased to be able to confirm that our owners are committed to investing more than £100m in the transformation and revitalisation of our portfolio in the coming years.”
