The Gresham Hotel Group is believed to have reached agreement on the sale of up to four of its hotels to another hotel group.

Gresham, which formerly traded as the Ryan Hotel Group, owns three hotels in the west of Ireland, the Gresham and Royal Marine Hotels in Dublin as well as hotels in London and Europe.

It received approaches from a number of hotel groups for certain properties with groups such as the Choice Hotels International Group being mentioned as potential buyers.

The Gresham group declined to comment yesterday.

Irish hotel groups, such as the McEniff Group and the Lynch Hotel Group, have also been mentioned as likely to be interested particularly in the west of Ireland hotels. A deal is expected to be announced shortly.

Choice Hotels International is one of the largest hotel franchise companies in the world with more than 5,000 hotels, inns, all-suite hotels and resorts in 46 countries.

It trades under the Comfort Inn, Comfort Suites, Quality, Clarion, Sleep Inn, Rodeway Inn, Econo Lodge and MainStay Suites brand names.

The McEniff group, run by two Donegal brothers, Brian and Sean McEniff, has previously looked at the hotel group's assets and was said to be particularly interested in its west of Ireland hotels. The Lynch group has hotels in Clare, Cork, Dublin, Galway, Kerry, Limerick, Mayo and Waterford.

Gresham chairman Mr Harvey Soning has said that the board would examine and explore any serious approaches while safeguarding shareholder and staff interests.

The company has adopted a new strategy which involves concentrating on its city-centre hotels and developing properties.

The strategy would seem to indicate that it would most likely sell its hotels in Galway, Limerick and Killarney.

Mr Soning has said the company was particularly interested in developing its presence in Dublin and may look to buy a substantial hotel.

It is now looking to expand its presence in London and in some European cities served by Aer Lingus.

It is also looking at ways of enhancing the Gresham brand in the international market through a marketing alliance with a larger hotel brand, such as Marriott or Hilton.

The group has land banks attached to hotels in Limerick and Killarney which it intends to develop into residential homes, to include holiday houses, apartments and duplex units.

The hotel was at the centre of a takeover battle last year which resulted in the Israeli-based Euro Sea group gaining board representation.

Mr Soning is a property adviser to the company. The takeover battle dented the group's profits.

In the 11 months to the end of December 2002, the group, recorded a 46 per cent fall in operating profits to Eur 4.2 million. It has said it is braced for a difficult year in 2003.