The Le Méridien Grosvenor House and Waldorf hotels in London have been placed into administrative receivership by Royal Bank of Scotland, which said today that it intended to take back control of all 11 Le Méridien hotels in the UK and Ireland.
The 11 hotels will eventually be taken out of the Le Méridien group and will cease to operate under the Le Méridien flag.
Le Méridien said the step of placing the two hotels into the hands of administrative receivers Kroll had been taken "for largely technical reasons" and did not affect any other Le Méridien hotels.
Both properties would "continue to operate without any interruption", the company said, and the receivers would work closely with the existing management to make sure that, as far as day-to-day guests were concerned, there were no apparent changes.
Le Méridien is still talking to Royal Bank of Scotland about how the other nine UK and Ireland hotels will be run while the bank looks for alternative operators.
Le Méridien's lenders are continuing discussions with US investment bank Lehman Brothers and Hyatt Financial Corp about the future of the 126 overseas hotels.
Their proposal involves a cash injection of £100m.
Le Méridien said: "This plan is focused on operating a profitable, standalone hotel company geared to growing the Le Méridien brand and backed by an appropriate long-term, robust capital structure and taking advantage of potential strategic synergies."
It added: "As a standalone company, Le Méridien will continue to have its own management and there are no plans for any Méridien hotels to become Hyatts or vice versa."
Todays announcement follows the collapse earlier this week of an alternative rescue plan put forward by financier Guy Hands, which would have kept the group together.