QMH future in balance

The future of in-debt hotel group Queens Moat Houses (QMH) hangs in the balance following the temporary suspension of its shares from the London Stock Exchange this week.

QMH is in advanced talks with its banks, which could see them agree to a standstill on its interest payments and a waiver of its bank covenants.

The group is also expected to put its 50 hotels in Germany and Holland up for sale in a bid to reduce its £630m debt burden.

In August the group announced it was carrying out a strategic review of its business and had started talks with lenders about "significant modification to certain terms of existing debt".

The outcome of the review was expected on 27 September, when the group was supposed to release its half-year financial results but, as talks with the banks hadn't been completed, it asked for its shares to be temporarily suspended.

Stuart Metcalfe, who took over from Andrew Coppell as QMH chief executive yesterday, said the move was purely technical and that it was "still business as usual" across the group's 88 hotels.

QMH has started selling off some assets. Next month it will sell its 107-bedroom Kensington Moat House hotel in London to Gulsham Bhatia, owner of the Hilton-operated Great Western hotel in Paddington, for £13.5m. Earlier in the year it also secretly put the 105-bedroom Sloane Square Moat House on the market.