Caterer and Hotelkeeper – 8954
Shareholders of Ireland's Jurys Hotel Group are expected this week (24 May) to approve the acquisition of rival Doyle Hotels in a deal worth IR£188m (£158m). It will be the biggest merger in the history of the Irish hotel industry. The new company, which will be known as Jurys Doyle Hotel Group, will have 29 hotels, more than 5,200 rooms and a market capitalisation of about IR£500m (£420m).
Jurys gains seven hotels in Dublin, including the Berkeley Court, the Westbury, and the Burlington. Jurys also gets the four-star, 186-bedroom Clifton Ford Hotel in London's West End and three hotels in Washington DC: the Doyle Washington, the Washington Courtyard and the Doyle Normandy Inn.
Jurys now wants hotels in other US cities, notably Boston, Chicago, New York and Philadelphia. But managing director Peter Malone said nothing would happen immediately.
"The biggest thing they [Doyle] bring us is America, because any company going to a new continent takes time to bed in," Malone said. "But with us going into Washington, there are no extra costs. The market is there. The management is in place. The systems are there."
Malone wants to double the number of UK hotels over the next five years. Jurys has nine hotels in the UK - in London, Manchester, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Malone is now looking at Birmingham, Leeds and Newcastle and is confident that the increased size of the group, which will have annual revenues of about IR£140m (£118m), will make it more attractive to investors and help the share price. He believes that the single European currency, which Ireland has adopted, will play a part in this. Ireland is one of 11 of 15 European Union members to adopt the new euro.
Malone said: "Now with the euro and the European stocks, people are going to look at us and say, ‘There's a good play on the Irish economy, a good play on good city centres, and a good play on America.'"
by Bob O'Connor
