Marylebone Warwick Balfour buys Malmaison
After months of speculation, Marylebone Warwick Balfour has become the new owner of boutique hotel chain Malmaison.
MWB plans to open more branches in major UK cities and continental Europe.
Malmaison, owned by US company Wyndham International, launched in 1994 with hotels in Glasgow and Edinburgh.
It has since opened branches in Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle.
Competition for the chain was fierce, with particularly strong bidding from Spanish hotel group Sol Melia.
MWB paid £65m for Malmaison. In a joint venture with Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS), MWB has set up a new company, Malmaison Holdings, which has bought the Malmaison brand and all rights to its worldwide expansion for £11m.
As part of the agreement, Malmaison Holdings has granted a franchise to Wyndham to enable it to open Malmaison branches in the US, Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean.
The next city to have a Malmaison will be Birmingham, where an 184-bedroom hotel is due to open in autumn next year.
MWB also plans to convert its Charterhouse Square property in London's Smithfield into a Malmaison, providing another 76 bedrooms.
The site was previously a hostel, and has just received planning permission.
Andrew Blurton, joint finance director of MWB, said the company would be looking at launching branches of Malmaison in other major UK cities as well as European centres such as Paris, Frankfurt and Rome.
The hotels would continue to target business travellers, with rooms priced up to £100.
Wyndham had begun planning a Malmaison in San Francisco before the sale.
Roy Tutty, chief executive of Wyndham International Europe, confirmed the project would be one of the first to be considered by Wyndham under its new franchise agreement.
There had been talks about a management buyout of Malmaison, possibly led by Tutty, but they came to nothing.
"Management buyouts always sound exciting, but the practical reality is that not many people have £78m in their back pocket," said Blurton. Tutty declined to comment.
By Linley Boniface
