Hotel giant InterContinental has put the vast majority of the hotels it owns in Britain up for sale, with a £1.3b price tag.
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The InterContinental on Hyde Park
Corner is likely to be retained
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The group put 75 of its 81 UK properties on the market late last week, as it announced positive results for the six months to 30 June 2004. Some of the remaining six hotels are already on the market, including the InterContinental George in Edinburgh and a couple of Holiday Inn properties.
Finance director Richard Solomons admitted that the group was likely to retain possession of only the InterContinental hotel on Hyde Park Corner in London.
Included in the latest tranche of hotels is the 185-bedroom Holiday Inn Mayfair and the 162-bedroom Holiday Inn Kensington, both in London. Agent Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels is marketing the portfolio.
InterContinental has also put its 438-bedroom Paris InterContinental hotel up for sale.
Prior to InterContinental's separation from Six Continents in April last year, the group owned 188 hotels; it now owns 166. Chief executive Richard North would not be drawn on how many properties the group would eventually own, or when he expected most of the asset disposals to be completed, but said: "We're not talking about a five-year programme here."
The group only really has four trophy assets: the InterContinental Le Grand in Paris, the InterContinental London, The Barclay in New York, and the InterContinental in Hong Kong.