Swissôtel purchase doubles up Raffles

Raffles Holdings has doubled the size of its hotels portfolio with the acquisition of Swissôtel Hotels & Resorts for £305m.

It will take over the ownership or management agreements for the Swiss chain's 23 hotels around the world from the end of May, but the hotels will keep the Swissôtel name. Six are wholly or majority-owned by Swissôtel.

Raffles currently has 16 hotels and 13 resorts in 10 countries, including its flagship hotel in Singapore. The acquisition will extend its reach to six continents and 17 countries.

It will increase the number of bedrooms Raffles owns by 139% to 13,457.

Raffles expects the merger of the two chains to lead to savings of £5.75m a year by the end of 2002. The Swissôtel head office in New York will be closed.

Parent company SAir Group, which also owns airline SwissAir, put Swissôtel up for sale earlier this year in a bid to offset poor trading elsewhere in the group.