Meetings group plans £40m re-furbishment
The Principal Hayley Hotels group has bought up two more venues as part of its expansion strategy.
The two new acquisitions are the New Connaught Rooms in London and the Glasgow Central Hotel.
No price was revealed for the purchases but Principal Hayley said that as part of the deal, it had agreed to spend £40m renovating the two properties.
Principal plans a £7m re-furbishment at the New Connaught Rooms, one of London's largest non-residential conference venues with a banqueting room for 1,000 and meetings space for 5,000.
The re-furbished rooms are due to open in September this year with a new name, The Grand Connaught Rooms.
The Glasgow Central Hotel, from where the world's first long distance television pictures were transmitted in 1927 by John Logie Baird, will undergo a "complete transformation."
This will include an overhaul of its public areas and 30 new rooms at the hotel located near the city's central Station.
It is due to re-open in February 2010 as The Grand Central Hotel.
Tony Troy, Principal's ceo, said: "We are very excited about the addition of The Grand Connaught Rooms and The Grand Central Hotel to our portfolio. Strategically they are an excellent fit to the collection.
"The Grand Connaught Rooms will work hand in hand with the Hotel Russell (also woned by Pricipal) to offer some of the finest conference and banqueting that central London has to offer.
"Glasgow is a thriving tourism and conference destination and the acquisition of The Grand Central Hotel is in keeping with our strategy of offering dedicated conference hotels in key city centre locations around the UK."
Principal Hayley, a group focused on city centre conference hotels, is part of Permira, a European private equity company.
It now has 24 properties including two recently open two dedicated conference venues in Paris and Barcelona.
The company this year has also entered into a joint venture with The Oakley Court in Windsor, spent £9m on refurbishments at Beaumont house in Old Windsor and £2.5m on upgrading IT.
www.principal-hayley.com