New group AJ Leisure aims for quick expansion

04 March 2004 by
New group AJ Leisure aims for quick expansion

Entrepreneur Alastair McEwen launched a new hotel, restaurant and pub group last week and has ambitious plans for the company.

AJ Leisure started trading on Ofex, the off-exchange stock market, last Thursday after buying its first hotel, the 37-bedroom Wroxton House just outside Banbury, Oxfordshire.

McEwen, who is chairman and chief executive of the group, said the company will be split into three divisions - hotels, restaurants and pubs - and would be expanding quickly this year.

He said the group has already bid £19m for a group of four hotels, which it hopes to complete soon, and that eventually he hopes to have a group of between eight to 10 hotels and 10 pubs.

The group also intends to open five restaurants this year.McEwen's son Tristan has become managing director of the hotel division of AJ Leisure, bringing with him six years' experience at Firmdale Hotels, where he was most recently general manager of Number 16 in London.

The group's hotels will be country house properties with about 50 bedrooms, offering four-star standards at three-star prices. AJ Leisure also hopes to make its food and beverage operations an integral part of the hotels.

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