Activities

Eton Group owns and operates a small collection of luxury boutique and town house hotels in London, Leeds and Edinburgh. Its founder, Peter Tyrie, is a veteran of the luxury hotel scene. He played a major role in developing Gleneagles in Perthshire and the Balmoral in Edinburgh to five-star standard in the 1980s and was responsible for the flotation of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group in 1987.

Timeline

• 1999: Tyrie sets up the Eton Group backed by a £52m cash injection from European Acquisition Capital. It opens the Colonnade town house in a Victorian mansion in London’s Little Venice.
• 2000: The Academy town house, a Georgian property in London’s Bloomsbury, joins the portfolio.
• 2002: The group makes its first move outside London with the opening of Quebecs, the first luxury boutique hotel in Leeds, in the spring. It is followed in the summer by Threadneedles in the City of London, which is sited in the former Midland Bank headquarters.
• June 2003: The Glasshouse boutique hotel, a £7m new-build in a leisure complex, opens in Edinburgh.
  

Operating data

Number of hotels: five

The Colonnade (43 bedrooms, e-bar tapas bar and cocktail lounge), Little Venice, London
The Academy Townhouse (49 bedrooms), Bloomsbury, London
Quebecs (45 bedrooms), Leeds
Threadneedles (69 bedrooms, Bonds restaurant), City of London
The Glasshouse (65 bedrooms), Edinburgh

Number of employees: 250

Strategy

“The company is based on the foundation that smaller hotels are highly profitable because they achieve high levels of revenue from the renting of rooms without the investment and operating costs associated with large public areas and the operation of food and beverage outlets provided in more traditional hotels of this type.”

Source: company overview

Key directors

Managing director and founder: Peter Tyrie
Group finance director: Kerry England
Group director of marketing: Hester Stuart
Group director of sales: Aoife Kelly

Contact

5 Threadneedle Street
London
Greater London
EC2R 8AY

Tel: 020 7657 8080
Fax: 020 7657 8100

E-mail: eton@theetoncollection.com
Website: http://www.theetoncollection.com

Commentary

The Eton Group is the third luxury hotel group to be set up in the UK by Peter Tyrie. He was responsible for both Gleneagles Hotels and Balmoral International Hotels in the 1980s, where he developed Gleneagles in Perthshire and the Balmoral in Edinburgh into trophy properties.

Tyrie wanted to call his newest venture Balmoral Town House Group but plumped for Eton Town House Group to avoid confusion with the Edinburgh hotel of that name that is now owned by Rocco Forte Hotels. The company name has since contracted to Eton Group to reflect a re-focus on grander boutique properties with larger public spaces and away from the smaller town house format. However, plans to sell the first two town houses (the Colonnade and the Academy) have been dropped.

Eton Group hotels highlight Tyrie’s passion for reviving the unique features of old buildings with history and heritage. For instance, Quebecs and Colonnade are both Victorian properties, the Academy is sited in a Georgian building, and the contemporary glass-walled Glasshouse uses of the Gothic façade of the old Lady Glenlochy church as its entrance.

Only Threadneedles and the Colonnade house restaurants as Tyrie feels they do not normally work well in hotels.

Tyrie is currently looking for a new business partner to fund his ambition of adding another 10 properties to the group and moving into Europe. His wish-list includes Barcelona, Madrid, Oxford, Cambridge, Bristol and more sites in London.