Dallas-based private equity firm Lone Star has created a new £1 billion (US$1.56 billion) hotel company called Amaris Hospitality, which will comprise 89 U.K. hotels from four separate portfolios anchored by 29 Jurys Inn hotels, which it purchased in January for £680 million (US$1.1 billion). Lone Star said it hopes to float Amaris on the stock market in the medium term.
The new group, which will be led by current Jurys Inn chief John Brennan, will also include 17 hotels from the Hotel Collection, which was created when Lone Star last year acquired Puma Hotels for £323 million (US$503 million).
The new umbrella company will also include 21 Mercure hotels, three Hiltons and — at the end of July, when a deal closes — 19 Thistle hotels. In total, the company will have more than 15,000 rooms and employ more than 8,000 people, and its business divisions will have combined sales of more than £450 million (US$700 million).
“The strategy is to create a branded hotels business,” Brennan said. “Many of these hotels have great locations but have not had much put into them. We have £100 million (US$156 million) to invest and renovate these hotels.”
Brennan added that extensive renovations to the portfolio will start in 2016 with a number hotels potentially being repositioned within the portfolio. Lone Star is expected to operate The Hotel Collection as a portfolio of individual U.K. provincial hotels, led by current Managing Director Peter Manby, and long term will not form part of Amaris Hospitality.
Grant Hearn, the former chief executive of Travelodge, will become non-executive chairman of the new company.