| Featured in this EMEA Hospitality Newsletter - Week Ending 20 January 2006 |
| Rotana Signs Up Nine New Hotels | Return to Headlines |
| Rotana Hotels will forget the pain of writer’s cramp when it gazes up at its hotel wallchart. The signing of nine new management agreements at one stroke meant the company could insert nine new flags into its map of the Middle East to join the 31 already there. Two of the flags have special significance for Rotana as they identify countries new to the company: Bahrain, which will welcome the 300-room Bahrain Rotana Hotel in 2008, and Jordan, which will be home by 2008 to the 450-room Amman Rotana Hotel. Three of the nine new hotels – two in Dubai and one in Abu Dhabi – will wear the company’s Centro livery; Rotana unveiled this new brand at the end of last year. | |
| Town House Company To Develop In Glasgow | Return to Headlines |
| Guests arriving for the opening in late 2007 of the Town House Company’s (THC) first hotel in Glasgow might perhaps consider taking their vehicles on a lap of Blythswood Square before screeching to a halt outside the hotel entrance in a cloud of tyre smoke: a fitting tribute to the building’s past as the home of the Royal Scottish Automobile Club. THC has paid more than £4.5 million for the property, which will be converted into a luxury 109-room hotel to supplement the company’s four luxury hotels in Edinburgh. | |
| Aurelius Receives A Delivery From Deutsche Post | Return to Headlines |
| The German press reports that logistics firm Deutsche Post has sold its subsidiary Deutsche Post Wohnen (DPW) to German investment company Aurelius Investkapital. DPW operates eight three-star hotels and seven boarding houses in cities across Germany. One report suggests that Aurelius is keen to establish a medium-sized chain of hotels. | |
| A New Line In Luxury From Hilton Hotels | Return to Headlines |
| If you are a hotel owner, before you retire for the evening take a good look at your property. Does it have the kind of architecture that might have made Wren applaud? Is the artwork of a standard sufficient to have turned Picasso green (or blue)? If the answer to either question is ‘yes’, then your property might be worthy of joining The Waldorf=Astoria Collection, a new luxury brand from Hilton Hotels Corporation (HHC). Joy will be confined to four hotels in the USA initially: The Waldorf=Astoria, in New York, and three resorts owned by CNL Hotels & Resorts. HHC does though have plans to expand the collection by three means: the co-branding of existing hotels; the addition to the collection of existing Hilton or Conrad hotels; and the branding of newly built hotels. | |
| Hotel Jugoslavija Finds A Buyer | Return to Headlines |
| With its 476 rooms the Hotel Jugoslavija would be a big draw in anybody’s auction. So the Serbian Privatisation Agency must have been disappointed when no-one turned up last year when the hotel in Belgrade first went on sale. Second time around three bidders showed up, and reports suggest that it was Serbian company Alpe Adria Hoteli that had its paddle up at the critical moment. The gavel came down with the bid at a reported €31.3 million. The path to a sale ran a little more smoothly on the Montenegrin coast. Croatian firm PGM Ragusa is reported to have paid Ulcinjska Rivijera €5.3 million for the 335-bed Galeb Hotel. PGM Ragusa will apparently be spending an additional €16.5 million on upgrading the hotel in the resort of Ulcinj from three stars to five. | |
| Q7. Describe QHotels' Latest Acquisition | Return to Headlines |
| Queens Moat Houses (QMH) put the Cheltenham & Gloucester Moat House Hotel on the market last autumn. QMH has now found a buyer in QHotels, which has paid an undisclosed sum (one report priced the deal at around £19 million) for the 120-room hotel. The renamed Cheltenham & Gloucester Chase Hotel, which stands in Brockworth, in Gloucestershire, is QHotels’ seventh hotel in the UK. The property will now embark on a programme of refurbishment costing £3 million. | |
| De Vere Group To Have A New Chairman | Return to Headlines |
| Lord Peter Daresbury is to step down as the non-executive chairman of De Vere Group on 3 April this year after six years in the position. His successor will be David Richardson, who joined the company in October 2005 as a non-executive director. Mr Richardson left Whitbread in April 2005 after 22 years’ service, the final four years of which were spent in the position of Finance Director. | |
Absolute Share Price Performance Over the Past Week 12/01/06-19/01/06
Whitbread - The market was again gripped by rumours that Whitbread was a takeover target.
Accor - The share price rose after UBS lifted its target price from €52 to €60 and maintained its 'Buy' rating.
Millennium & Copthorne - Oriel Securities named the company's shares among its 'must-have' shares.
