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US-based private equity firm Lone Star has revealed plans to unite 89 hotels to form a new £2bn hotel chain, named Amaris Hospitality.
The company will comprise 29 Jurys Inn hotels which Lone Star acquired for £680m in January, Puma Hotels (bought for £323m last year) which it has rebranded as the Hotel Collection, 21 Mercure hotels, three Hilton-branded properties and 19 Thistle Hotels (following completion of a deal on July 30).
Grant Hearn, the former chief executive of Travelodge, will become non-executive chairman of the new company.
Hearn said: “We are delighted to announce the creation of Amaris Hospitality. The new group will allow us to leverage the considerable scale and size of this unique portfolio of hotels and brands to accelerate its future growth and development and, we believe, create the UK’s best performing, most exciting hospitality investment group.
“Through the successful implementation of our strategy in the coming years we expect the business to have a value of over £2bn.”
In a statement the new company also said it will invest £100m into the refurbishment, rebranding and transformation of the group’s portfolio to accelerate its growth and development.
John Brennan, who is the current head of Jurys Inn, will become chief executive of Amaris. He said: “I’m pleased to be able to confirm that our owners are committed to investing over £100 million in the transformation and revitalisation of our portfolio in the coming years.”
Lone Star hopes to be able to float Amaris – which will become one of the largest hotel owners in the UK with 15,000 rooms and 8,000 employees – on the stock market in the medium term.
