Brighton's Grand hotel up for sale with £50m price tag

The five-star, 201-bedroom De Vere Grand in Brighton has been put on the market for a sum in excess of £50m.

De Vere intends to capitalise on the increasingly buoyant hotel market after investing £4.25m in refurbishing the property which was bombed by the IRA during the Conservative Party conference in 1984.

Robert Cook, chief executive of De Vere Hotels & Village Urban Resorts, said: "It has always been part of the strategic plan to sell the Grand, leaving us with the De Vere golf portfolio and Village Urban Resorts."

The company is currently undergoing consolidation having put De Vere Venues on the market in April for around £300m. The sale of the both the venues and the Grand hotel will go some way towards reducing De Vere's £1.1m debt with the Lloyds Banking Group.

The remaining De Vere hotels, which all feature golf courses, include Cameron House on Loch Lomond and the Belfry near Birmingham, while the 25-strong Village Urban Resorts brand will see three new openings next year in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow.

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