BDL sells 13 Express hotels to private investor Somerston

Glasgow-based hotel group BDL Hotels has sold the majority of its Express by Holiday Inn portfolio for an estimated £115m to private investor Somerston hotels.

The 13 properties will be managed alongside Somerston's existing Express portfolio, taking its total to 32 properties and making it the largest Express operator in the country.

BDL originally put the properties on the market as a sale-and-lease-back arrangement, but instead brokered a sale with Somerston, which also involves the transfer of many of BDL's operational, sales and marketing staff to Somerston's management arm.

BDL has five remaining properties: two Crowne Plazas, a Holiday Inn, a Ramada Encore and a management contract for one Express by Holiday Inn.

It is due to open a new Ramada Encore in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, in July and Express hotels in Leeds and Doncaster, South Yorkshire, next year.

A BDL spokesman confirmed the company was looking to expand the portfolio and said it was negotiating a number of other management contracts.

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