Robinson brings a touch of austerity to Forte

THE Granada hotels to catering group, which bought out the Forte hotel chain in January after a contentious £3

THE Granada hotels to catering group, which bought out the Forte hotel chain in January after a contentious £3.8 billion takeover battle, this week announced its intention to de couple Forte's worldwide chain of Meridian hotels, which includes the prestigious Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin.

Granada, headed by Spartan like Irishman Peter Robinson, is turning unwanted assets into cash by selling Forte's luxury hotel chains to concentrate resources on building up its lower to middle market hotels and catering outlets.

Robinson, known for his asceticism, is also wielding the axe on the residue of Forte's high profile, high spending promotional activities. The first junket to bite the dust will be Forte's £1 million sponsorship of the Prix de l'Arch de Triomphe race meeting in Paris this October.

Forte picked up the bill for this extravagance for the past three years but Robinson considers that, since the focus of the group has changed, there are better ways to promote hotels. It was champagne all the way when Sir Rocco entertained hundreds of the right people, flying them from Heathrow to watch the races and to wine and dine at Longchamp with celebrity chef Marco Pierre White.

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Given the pragmatic Robinson's aversion to anything that smacks of wasteful expenditure big chef Marco Pierre may lose out to a motorway blow out at a Granada Little Chef.