Forte poised to clinch sale of Travelodge USA

Forte is this week believed to be close to concluding the sale of its Travelodge USA business for about US$160m (£103m) to HFS, the world's largest franchise group.

The US Travelodge brand represents almost 40% of Forte's total room stock but the properties, which are a mixture of owned, leased and franchised businesses, are seen as tired and requiring significant investment.

Stephen Rushmore, president of New York-based consultancy Hospitality Valuation Services, was unable to confirm the sale of the 472 properties, but agreed that HFS was being widely seen as the favoured candidate.

The head of a rival company to HFS in the USA confirmed: "The prevailing rumour is an acquisition by HFS, though it does not appear to be a done deal yet."

HFS has a wide variety of brands, including Ramada, Howard Johnson, Days Inn and Super 8 Motels, but as yet it does not have a brand positioned squarely in the budget sector in which Travelodge USA operates.

When the much-heralded sale is concluded, it will take Forte's total of asset disposals to well over £1b during the past three years. Last week, Forte sold a hotel in Liège in Belgium and apartments in Majorca for a total of £2.2m, and announced plans to sell the 119-bedroom Polygon Hotel in Southampton for redevelopment as offices.

Keith Hamill, finance director at Forte, said that besides disposals such as Gardner Merchant and Harvester, Forte had sold 45 hotels and 47 restaurants in the past two years.

The position is less clear, however, on the proposed sale of White Hart Hotels, a collection of about 70 Forte cast-offs worth about £100m. Michael Brooker's Oriel Leisure is still being tipped as the favoured bidder, but Caterer understands Forte has not ruled out selling it off in small packages.

Meanwhile, the spat between the rival camps in the takeover battle continues, with new documents being sent to shareholders by both Granada and Forte.

Granada attacked Forte's break-up proposals as lacking both commercial and financial sense. It added that Forte's forecast of £185m profits for the year to the end of January 1996 showed a return on assets of just 7.2%.

Forte accused Granada of being an unwieldy conglomerate that was achieving growth through acquisition and claimed that the predator's underlying businesses had stagnated.

• Granada is believed to have been negotiating a deal to take a stake in Fedics, the leading South African contract catering company. It caters for all the major airlines at South Africa's airports and has been enjoying strong growth following the rise in air traffic to the country. The company had a turnover of R664m (about £118m) in the year to May.

Charles Allen, Granada's chief operating officer, told Caterer: "We have talked to Fedics but there is nothing specific to announce. We have not taken a stake."