Activities

Verve Venues owns, leases and manages a string of largely residential conference, meeting and training centres across the country.

They also offer championship golf courses (at three sites), health and fitness facilities, team-building activities, leisure breaks and host weddings.

The group was initially founded in 1978 as Style Conferences but was renamed Verve Venues in early 2006 after the Alternative Hotel Group (AHG) bought it from Rentokil Initial.

AHG is jointly owned by the Bank of Scotland and a group of investors led by Richard Balfour-Lynn and other directors of Marylebone Warwick Balfour, including Malmaison and Hotel du Vin managing director Robert Cook.

While continuing to focus on the core conference, meetings and training business, AHG has set out to increase its revenues from the leisure sector by upgrading the properties to four-star standard and adding new services such as spas and activity-led learning weekends.

AHG also plans to expand the line-up of non-residential city venues for day meetings – called Verve City – and build more exclusive training facilities in partnership with clients on its underutilised land.

Timeline

• 1978: Style Conferences is founded.
• November 1993: The group buys Staverton Park in Daventry, Northamptonshire, out of receivership. It becomes the first property to be run as a hotel as well as a dedicated conference centre. 
• February 1995: Style Conferences buys Minster Lovell Mill Conference Centre and the adjacent Old Swan hotel in Oxfordshire from receivership for £2.5m. The site boosts the group’s portfolio to 18 properties and becomes the second venue to be run as a hotel. Twelve sites operate as training centres for clients such as Coopers and Lybrand, BP, Prudential and Securicor.
• June 1995: Following two years of talks, the diversified BET Group buys the 18-strong Style Conferences group for £70m to become the UK’s largest provider of specialist conference and training centres.
• August 1995: Style Conferences buys the 40-bedroom Theobalds Park Adult Residential and Training Centre at Waltham Cross, Hertfordshire, from the London Borough of Enfield.
• 1996: Rentokil Initial succeeds in a £1.8b hostile bid for BET and renames its meetings and training arm Initial Style Conferences.
• December 2005: Rentokil sells the 29-strong Initial Style Conferences business to the Alternative Hotel Group (AHG). AHG is jointly-owned by the Bank of Scotland and a group of investors led by Richard Balfour-Lynn and other directors of Marylebone Warwick Balfour (including Robert Cook, managing director of the Malmaison and Hotel du Vin boutique hotel chains).
• February 2006: Initial Style Conferences takes over the management of the 150-bedroom Sunningdale Park hotel training and conference centre in Bromley, Kent, after the Cathedral Group buys it from Hanover International for £15m.
• April 2006: The business is renamed Verve Venues and a new brand – Verve City – is unveiled for the non-residential city sites previously called City Style. The group plans to target the leisure market by upgrading its properties from a two-three-star standard to a four-star offering, strengthening its existing golf and wedding businesses, and adding new services such as spas, health and fitness centres and activity-led learning weekends.
• May 2006: Verve opens a new specialist residential training facility built for BMW at Wokefield Park in Berkshire, which it will manage under a long-term contract. It’s the first of a series of planned partnerships with clients to put under-used assets and land to work.

Financial snapshot

Full Year

Turnover: £91.1m
Operating profit: £25.3m
Pre-tax profit: £19.7m

Projected turnover for 2005: £88m

Financial year end: 31 December 2004

Operating data

Number of employees: more than 2,000
Number of venues: 29 across 24 sites
Number of bedrooms: more than 2,700
Total meeting capacity: more than 3,500 people
Number of championship golf venues: three (Wokefield Park, Staverton Park, Wychwood Park)
Clients include: BP, IBM, Vodafone, BMW, National School of Government, Scottish Ambulance Service

Verve Venues: 17 owned sites
Barony Castle, Scottish Borders (78 bedrooms, capacity-200)      
Branksome Surrey, (60 bedrooms, capacity-150)    
Devonport House London (94 bedrooms, capacity-120)
Gorse Hill Surrey (50 bedrooms, capacity-72)
Harben House, Buckinghamshire (137 bedrooms, capacity-200)
Hartsfield Manor, Surrey (50 bedrooms, capacity-100)
Highfield Park Hampshire (57 bedrooms, capacity-50)
Horsley Conference Centres, Surrey: three venues (169 bedrooms, capacity-130)
Hunton Park, Hertfordshire (60 bedrooms, capacity-100)
Latimer Conference Centres, Buckinghamshire (198 bedrooms, capacity-220) 
Mill and Old Swan, Oxfordshire (63 bedrooms, capacity-50) 
New Place, Hampshire (110 bedrooms, capacity-110)
Staverton Park, Northamptonshire (245 bedrooms, capacity-320) 
Theobalds Park, Hertfordshire, (110 bedrooms, capacity-120)
Warbrook House and Grange Hampshire (78 bedrooms, capacity-90)
Wokefield Park, Berkshire (290 bedrooms, capacity-350)
Wychwood Park, Cheshire (108 bedrooms, capacity-250)
Verve Venues: 3 leased sites
Cheadle House, Cheshire (52 bedrooms, capacity-80)
Milton Hill House Oxfordshire (113 bedrooms, capacity-150)  
Sunningdale Park Berkshire: two venues (272 bedrooms, capacity-225)
Verve Venues: 3 managed sites
Durdent Court, Buckinghamshire (94 bedrooms, capacity-160)  
Sundridge Park, Kent (150 bedrooms, capacity-120)
Uplands, Buckinghamshire (76 bedrooms, capacity-100)

Verve City: 1, leased
Portland Place, London (capacity-40)

Strategy

“Verve Venues will undertake a substantial refurbishment programme to move from typically a 2-3 star to a 4 star offering, focussing on bedrooms, reception areas, meeting rooms and training areas. Introducing comprehensive WiFi technology as a new standard is planned across the business. The portfolio will also be expanded through both organic growth and acquisition, with imminent plans to announce new acquisitions to the Verve City portfolio to include properties in the City and West End, but also in other major UK conurbations.

Investment and focus will be given to establish a strong leisure offering throughout the portfolio, and to strengthen the existing golf and wedding market. In addition, capital investment will enable Verve Venues to open new services such as spas, health & fitness centres and activity led learning weekends.”

Source: company press release, 25 April 2006

Key directors

Chairman: Richard Balfour-Lynn
Chief operating officer: Tony Dangerfield
Finance director: Phillip Adams
Marketing manager: David Owen

Contact

Horsley Conference Centre
Ockham Road South
East Horsley
Surrey
KT24 6DU

Tel: 0800 592 250

Website: http://www.verve-venues.com