The Swan hotel at Streatley sold to new hotel group headed by Hugh Osmond
The Swan hotel at Streatley, near Reading, has been sold to a new hotel company headed up by pubs and pizza entrepreneur Hugh Osmond.
The 45-bedroom hotel was sold by former owner Nike Group Hotels, which ran it for more than a decade but now aims to concentrate on other business interests.
The new owner is Rare Bird Hotels, a new hotel group set up by Osmond, founder of Punch Taverns, who previously worked with Pizza Express. The group said it has ambitious plans for the Swan including a comprehensive refurbishment.
The hotel was sold for an undisclosed sum off a guide price of £6m.
Occupying a prominent position next to the River Thames, the Swan is a 45-bedroom four-star hotel with extensive restaurant and conference facilities, a riverside bar and terrace, and a spa with mineral pool.
Jonathan Wren, a director within the hotels department of Colliers International, which advised on the deal, commented: "The marketing and sale of the Swan proved once again that despite all the talk of doom and gloom in the provincial hotel market, there are always buyers for quality businesses."
Previously called the Swan Diplomat hotel, the Swan was once a 17th century inn. It was mentioned in Jerome K Jerome's Three Men in a Boat, and owned by Danny La Rue in the 1970s.
