A consortium of investors led by Quinlan Private has won the battle to purchase the Jurys Inns division of the Jurys Doyle Hotel Group with a €1.165 billion cash bid. The sale was concluded in the early hours of Saturday morning.
Quinlan beat off competition for the chain of 20 three-star hotels from Whitbread, the UK owner of the budget Premier Travel Inns chain, and Lydian Capital, a Swiss investment house backed by John Magnier, JP McManus and former Kerry Group head Denis Brosnan.
There are 20 "budget-plus" hotels in the Jurys Inns chain - 14 in the UK and six in Ireland - with a total of 4,835 rooms. According to documents circulated to bidders, Jurys Inns had earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of €60 million in 2006.
Quinlan says that it plans to expand the chain, under the Jurys Inn brand, into central and eastern Europe. This has led to speculation that the Jurys Doyle group may drop the Jurys name from its hotels to avoid confusion in the market.
Quinlan also has aggressive growth plans in the UK and Ireland. During the sale process Jurys management gave details of 50 locations in the UK which it had identified as being suitable for the three-star chain.
"This is a highly-attractive business, with enormous growth opportunities, which we are delighted to acquire," said Pauline Bradley, the Quinlan director who led the deal.
"Jurys Inns has a strong management team, led by Niall Geoghegan, and we look forward to working with the team to rapidly roll out further hotels in Ireland and the UK."
Quinlan has considerable experience in managing and operating hotels on behalf of its investors. Hotels under its management include the Four Seasons hotels in Dublin, Prague and Budapest, the Maybourne group of luxury hotels in London and Yasmin Hotels in central Europe.
In April Quinlan teamed up with Israel's Igal Ahouvi Group on the €1.6 billion purchase from the Royal Bank of Scotland of a 47-hotel chain in Britain operated by the Marriott group, which included the London Marriott County Hall hotel.
JDH Acquisitions, the vehicle the family of the late PV Doyle used to take the group private for €1.25 billion in 2005, will now focus on its remaining luxury hotels division. In January it announced plans to refurbish and upgrade a number of its hotels, including the Westbury, Jurys Kensington, Jurys Clifton Ford, Jurys Great Russell Street and Jurys Bristol.
Jurys also has two recently-constructed hotels at Croke Park in Dublin and Cork. In the US it owns three properties in Washington and one in Boston. Following the disposal of the inns, JDH has indicated that it will look at acquiring top-end hotels in key European cities and on the east coast of the US.
The sale process was driven by Crownway Investments, which is controlled by John Gallagher and his wife, Bernie, a daughter of Mr Doyle. Crownway instigated the strategic review of the business which led to the decision to split the group into the two divisions.
