Premier Travel Inn owner Whitbread has bought Golden Tulip UK for £44m.
The deal first revealed on Kitchen Rat early this month sees Whitbread acquire six hotels and, with a pipeline of nine further sites due to open in the next two years, ultimately 2,000 additional rooms for its Premier Travel Inn (PTI) business.
Whitbread will spend £9m converting the 15 hotels to PTIs.
Alan Parker, chief executive of Whitbread, said: “I am pleased that we are able to buy these modern and well-located hotels for Premier Inn.”
Peter Roberts, Golden Tulip UK chief executive, welcomed the takeover. "Whitbread’s considerable experience in this sector of the hotel market will ensure our business goes from strength to strength as part of its highly successful Premier Inn group," he said.
Parker confirmed to Caterersearch that the company was in talks with Golden Tulip's senior management team about job opportunities within the enlarged business.
At the start of the year, Golden Tulip promoted Andrew Silver to managing director to support its own ambitious expansion plans in the UK and set itself a target of 25 hotels by 2009.
Golden Tulip UK is backed by private equity firm Graphite Capital and Barclays Bank.
Whitbread is currently in the process of rebranding PTI as Premier Inn.
Whitbread poised to buy Golden Tulip UK for £40m-plus >>
Golden Tulip UK appoints first managing director to support expansion >>
Whitbread to spend millions rebranding Premier Travel Inn >>
By Chris Druce
E-mail your comments to Chris Druce here.
|
|
Newswire
For the latest hospitality news, sign up for our e-mail news alerts. | |