| Fancy Something Tall And Handsome In Moscow? |
| The hammer is poised to come down on another of Moscow’s Soviet-era hotels. However, on this occasion the instrument will be wielded not by a demolition worker but by an auctioneer. The Hotel Ukraina – which at 206 metres is the tallest hotel in Russia – is apparently set to arrive in the saleroom at some point, and The Moscow Times quotes sources that price the 930-room hotel at anywhere between US$157 million and US$180 million. |
| Jurys Doyle Decides To Sell The Berkeley Court And The Jurys Montrose | Return to Headlines |
| Jurys Doyle Hotel Group announced on 28 July that it had reached a deal on its Ballsbridge site in Dublin; Padholme is due to pay €260 million for the five acres. A month on, and Jurys Doyle’s attention is focused on one of the three hotels on the site – The Berkeley Court; the company is making plans to sell it. And that will not be the only property in the catalogue; Jurys Doyle wants to sell the Jurys Montrose Hotel, which elsewhere in Dublin dwells. | |
| Vienna International Gets To Work In Bratislava | Return to Headlines |
| The Austrian press reports that Vienna International Hotels is about to team up with local developer Urbia Holding in the city of Bratislava to create two hotels: a brace that will mark the entry of Vienna International into Slovakia. The Palais Habermayer is to be reworked into an 86-room, four-star hotel and the Hussitenhaus into a 35-room, five-star hotel. The total cost of the work is put at a reported €15 million, and the hotels are scheduled to open in 2007. | |
| The Best A Hotelier Can Get? | Return to Headlines |
| It might be said that the Regency Hotel Group is in with a chance of becoming the smoothest operator in London’s southwestern suburbs. The Bonnington Group, of which Regency forms a part, is said to be poised to pay a reported £30 million for the Art Deco building that has been home to the Gillette Company since 1937. Gillette announced in 2003 that it would be leaving the site in Isleworth; the company should have moved out completely by 2007. | |
| Whitbread Raises A Smile For Its Trading Update | Return to Headlines |
| Patrick Dempsey, the current Managing Director of the Whitbread Hotel Company, will find he has inherited a Premier Travel Inn portfolio in rude health when he replaces Mike Tye as the Managing Director of the chain on 1 October. Whitbread’s trading update for the 24 weeks to 18 August 2005 showed like-for-like sales among the budget hotels were 8.0% ahead of last year’s comparable. Like-for-like sales for the group shrugged off the negative growth returned by the pub restaurants and the high street restaurants to finish 0.6% up on last year. | |
| Radisson SAS Arrives In Kiev | Return to Headlines |
| And the first global brand to make its mark in Kiev is…Radisson SAS. The Ukrainian capital is the proud owner of a 255-room example of the brand: a €49 million hotel in which Rezidor SAS Hospitality owns a 10% stake. The other owners and their holdings are Raiffeisen Management Investment (60%) and EBRD (30%). | |
| Corus Goes Hotels For Sale | Return to Headlines |
| County Hotels and Flamepro, each company a wholly owned subsidiary of Corus Hotels, will between them be expecting to complete the sale of three three-star hotels in England by 16 September. County Hotels is offering up two of the properties: the 65-room County Hotel, Manchester in Stockport, Greater Manchester, and the 84-room Falcon Hotel in Stratford-upon-Avon, which at £8.5 million is the most expensive of the three hotels on offer. Flamepro’s light will go out at the 57-room Hotel de la Bere in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. The purchaser of all three hotels is private hotelier Noblelarge, which will be paying a grand total of £17.55 million. | |
| Port Hotel Has Plans For Poland's Airports | Return to Headlines |
| Port Hotel’s ambition is to have a hotel near every airport in Poland. According to reports, the company, a subsidiary of airport operator Polskie Porty Lotnicze, has plans to spend some US$90 million on the construction of ten or 11 hotels over the next five years. Some of the properties will be rated two-star and the rest four-star. | |
| You'll Not Be Alone At The Summit | Return to Headlines |
| The Sofitel St James in London is the venue for the 5th Annual European Hotel Finance & Investment Summit, brought to you by Euromoney Seminars. Distinguished speakers at the event, which runs from 28-29 September, include Accor’s Michael Flaxman, Gill Baker (Premier Travel Inn) and Amar Lalvani (Starwood Hotels). HVS International London’s Managing Director Russell Kett will be moderating a panel addressing the question, “Where are the investment opportunities and who is exploiting them?”. Such fare should be enough to satisfy the biggest of appetites, but those with room for more could stay on at the hotel for the separately bookable Limited Service Hotels Briefing Day, on 30 September. You will then be able to feast your ears on the likes of HVS International’s Dominique Bourdais, and Gerard Greene, the CEO of Yotel. Further details are available from the website www.euromoneyseminars.com click here. | |
Absolute Share Price Performance Over the Past Week 25/08/05-01/09/05
Hilton Group - Morgan Stanley raised its target price to 335p.
InterContinental Hotels Group - IHG's disposal of ten hotels in Australasia helped confirm Merrill Lynch in its belief that the asset disposal programme was progressing well. The broker consequently retained its 'Buy' rating.
Whitbread - Deutsche Bank's expectations were everywhere met, with the exception of the pubs' performance. Thus while retaining its 'Buy' rating, Deutsche Bank has cut its target price from 1,160p to 1,125p.
