Paramount Hotels, the 13-strong hotel group majority-owned by venture capitalist Alchemy Partners, has been put up for sale with an estimated price tag of £250m.
Alchemy, which owns 90% of the group, has appointed Jones Lang LaSalle adviser for the deal.
Mark Wynne-Smith, managing director of Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels, said the sale was likely to attract interest from both UK trade buyers and financial institutions.
Wynne-Smith disagreed with the suggestion that now was not the best time to be selling a hotel group because of the difficult trading conditions since 2001. "The market can't get any worse, it can only get better," he said. "Now is a good time to be investing. I think we will see a lot more buyers in the market this year than there were three years ago."
A spokesman for Alchemy said it was the "right point in Alchemy's investment cycle" to sell the properties, which, he added, were less affected by the downturn in business following the 11 September attacks because of their provincial locations.
Paramount was formed in 1994 by the former managing director of Principal Hotels, Michael Purtill. Alchemy became involved in the group in June 1998 after providing £27m of funding to buy the company from venture capitalist Advance Synergy for £77m. A year later, it provided an extra £14m to help the group make a £57m offer for Scottish Highland Hotels.