Overall ranking: 91 (88)
Hoteliers ranking: 23 (24)
Andrew Davis - Snapshot
Andrew Davis is the entrepreneur behind Von Essen Hotels, which has built up a collection of 22 three to five-star hotels (including such legendary properties as Cliveden in Berkshire and Sharrow Bay in Cumbria) since its foundation in 1996.
The hotels are marketed under three collections – the Classic Set, the Country Set and the family-friendly Luxury Family Hotels.
Three are members of the elite Relais & Chateau consortium (Sharrow Bay, Buckland Manor and Ynyshir Hall) and three have Michelin stars (Cliveden, Sharrow Bay, Ynyshir Hall).
The company, which employs more than 2,000 staff, more than doubled its operating profit in the year to June 2004 to £13m, while sales doubled to £42.2m.
Andrew Davis - Career guide
Davis, 42, originally trained as a commercial lawyer specialising in antiques and fine arts. From 1986 to 1992 he worked as legal director and in-house counsel to a major fine art house and was involved in property development, property investment and farming.
From 1993, he expanded his property and art trading activities to Monaco, southern France, Spain and the USA. He also founded and operated a small helicopter charter business.
He established Von Essen Hotels and various subsidiaries in 1996.
Andrew Davis - What we think
Von Essen was founded with aid of a trust fund set up by Davis’s Austrian aunt, the Countess Von Essen, and Davis seems to have unlimited funds to drive his ambition to create a 25-strong group.
His personal interest in flying has added a unique service to the stable of luxurious and individual hotels he has built up - namely a fleet of helicopters that will fly guests to any of its hotels from Battersea in south London.
The group had three properties (Mount Somerset hotel in Taunton, Congham Hall hotel in Norfolk and New Park Manor in Hampshire) by 2000, when it snapped up Ston Easton Park in Bath and Thornbury Castle in Gloucestershire for around £5m a piece.
Bishopstrow House hotel in Wiltshire followed in 2001. The following year Davis bought the world-famous Cliveden in Berkshire (which won a Michelin star in 2006 under chef Daniel Galmiche), along with the Royal Crescent hotel in Bath, for £50m.
2003 was a bumper year for growth. Von Essen bought Lewtrenchard Manor in Devon, Dalhousie Castle near Edinburgh, and four Cotswolds properties for £16m (Buckland Manor, Lower Slaughter, Washbourne Court and The Elms). The icing on the cake was the acquisition of the legendary Sharrow Bay hotel in Cumbria which was the UK’s first country house hotel when it opened in the 1950s.
In 2005, Davis added the Greenway hotel in Gloucestershire and Homewood Park hotel in Bath.
The current year has seen the group move into new markets. At the start of 2006, Davis targeted the family-friendly market when he snapped up three of the four Luxury Family Hotels group established by Nigel Chapman and Nicholas Dickinson in 1993 for £20m.
By September, he had added the fourth property, Ickworth hotel, after renegotiating a deeply unattractive lease with landowner the National Trust. It joins Cliveden as one of two Von Essen hotels to be leased from the National Trust, where Davis sees possible future opportunities.
The same month, Davis snapped up his first Welsh property, the celebrated Ynyshir Hall which is the only hotel in Wales to belong to the exclusive Relais & Chateau consortium and one of just two to hold a Michelin star.
He is already working on a second Welsh property in the form of a romantic island retreat on Thorne Island, which will be linked to the Pembroke coast by cable car.
Along with a five-star international hotel, the island in the Pembrokeshire National Park will offer a sea-water spa, a preview cinema with editing suite, a contemporary seafood restaurant hosted by a celebrity chef.
Davis has made no secret of his ambition to snap up a London property and he has earmarked more than £100m to achieve this goal. He is also keen to move into Continental Europe.
The decision in 2005 to increase trade from the domestic European and international business sectors prompted a £35m refurbishment programme over three years, with the focus on upgrading spa and conference facilities.
Andrew Davis – Further information
Von Essen profile on CatererSearch
Von Essen official websites
Read more about the CatererSearch100, the list of the most influential people here