Whitbread is to buy the Premier Lodge chain of budget hotels from Spirit Group for £505m.
The acquisition includes 132 Premier Lodge hotels with a total of 9.133 bedrooms and a further nine sites that will add 929 bedrooms once completed.
The chain will be integrated with Whitbread's own budget chain, Travel Inn, under the banner of Premier Travel Inn.
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Premier Lodge: checking in to Whitbread
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The combined chain will have more than 29,000 bedrooms across 461 hotels.
Whitbread is also buying 19 pub-restaurants located alongside some of the hotels, for £31.2m. These will be rebranded as Brewers Fayre by March next year.
The businesses being acquired made profits before interest and tax of £29m in the year to 31 December 2003, and £16m in the six months to 26 June this year.
Whitbread expects to make cost savings of £12m after two years of owning Premier Lodge.
It will incur one-off costs of £8m this year to cover integration and refurbishment.
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