Jack Petchey is poised to re-enter the hotel and conference sector after making a £20m profit on the Hanover International portfolio.
Petchey has sold the 12 hotels in the group, which he acquired in a £130m hostile takeover in September 2003, to various hoteliers for a total amounting to more than £150m.
The final two properties in the portfolio the 114-bedroom Pine Lodge hotel in Bromsgrove, and the Eynsham Hall conference and training centre in Oxford have just gone under offer.
Maurice Gourgey’s Pederson Group is buying Pine Lodge; Eynsham Hall went to an undisclosed buyer.
Petchey Holdings chief executive Kailayapillai Ranjan said the company planned to get back into the market.
“The sector is of interest to us and we will make group and individual purchases because of the double opportunity for growth. Values can go up in both the business and the property,” he said.
In January the group sold its hotel in Warrington to Quintessential Hotels for £22m and its hotel in Cardiff to Pederson, while last month Cathedral Group bought the Sundridge Park hotel in Kent for £15m.
Dawnay Day and Shore Capital’s DSH bought hotels in Basingstoke, Hinckley and Daventry, representing a quarter of the whole group, for £57m last December.
Savills advised Hanover.
References: EGi News 29/03/05
