 | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Hospitality |
| Founded | 1984 [1] |
Area served | United Kingdom France |
| Revenue | £160.9 million (2013) [2] |
| Parent | Intercontinental Hotels Group |
| Website | www |
Principal Hotel Company is a British hotel and conference venue operator headquartered in Harrogate, England.
A predecessor company was founded in 1984. In 1992, when the chain had 18 properties, it went bankrupt during a recession. [3] Two years later, in 1994, a former operations director of the chain, Tony Troy, led a management buyout for £68 million by Bridgepoint Capital. [4] In 2001, Principal Hotels was sold to Nomura International Plc for £255 million, with Troy staying on as managing director. [5] Nomura had just bought Le Méridien and rebranded the hotels to that chain.
The company was reconstituted in 2004, when Le Méridien faced financial difficulties, and Troy took control back of the London, Manchester, York and Leeds properties. [6] In 2006, the chain was sold by the Royal Bank of Scotland to the private equity firm Permira. [7] In 2007, Principal Hotels sold their physical hotel properties to aAIM Group for £270 million and leased them back. [8] That same year, the chain bought Hayley Conference Hotels, becoming the Principal Hayley Group. [9]
In 2009, it expanded through the purchase of two venues from the collapsed group The Real Hotel Company [10] and opened two new venues in France and Spain.
In 2010 the company was taken over by Lloyds, following financial difficulty. In 2012, the company bought back the hotels it had sold to aAim for £200m. [11] In February 2013, Lloyds sold the group to the American investment company Starwood Capital Group for £360 million. [12]
In November 2016, Principal Hayley Group went through a major rebranding and re-investment project. The group was renamed as the Principal Hotel Company and split their portfolio between two groups of hotels; Principal (a group of luxury city hotels) and De Vere (a group of country estate hotels). [13] In September 2017, De Vere relaunched with 22 locations [14] [15] and announced the sale of 20 non-core hotels. [16] In December 2017, the Wychwood Park hotel was sold to Mokan Hotels Company for £8 million. [17]
In May 2018, Fonciere des Regions and the InterContinental Hotels Group bought the chain from Starwood Capital for $1.1 billion, [18] with FdR acquiring the underlying property assets and IHG taking over management of the hotels. [19] IHG announced that some Principal Hotels would be rebranded as Kimpton Hotels. [20]
Principal Hotel Company advertises that it was established in 1898, as that is the year the oldest hotel in its chain, Kimpton Fitzroy London Hotel, opened, under unrelated ownership.
The company operates 12 locations in the UK.
| Location | Name |
|---|---|
| London | Kimpton Fitzroy London Hotel |
| Edinburgh | Kimpton Charlotte Square Hotel |
| InterContinental Edinburgh The George | |
| Glasgow | Kimpton Blythswood Square Hotel |
| voco Grand Central Glasgow | |
| Manchester | Kimpton Clocktower Hotel |
| York | The Principal York |
| Cardiff | voco St David's Cardiff Hotel |
| Sandford-on-Thames | voco Oxford Thames |
| Oxford | voco Oxford Spires |
| Dorking | Wotton House |
| Leeds | The Met Hotel |
Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide, Inc. was one of the largest companies that owned, operated, franchised and managed hotels, resorts, spas, residences, and vacation ownership properties. It was acquired by Marriott International in 2016. Starwood was founded in 1969 as a real estate investment trust. In 1995, it was acquired and reorganized by Barry Sternlicht, who was its chairman until 2005 and founder of the Starwood Capital Group. Starwood had 11 brands and owned, managed, or franchised 1,297 properties comprising 370,000 hotel rooms in approximately 100 countries.
InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), marketed as IHG Hotels & Resorts, is a British multinational hospitality company headquartered in Windsor, Berkshire, England. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange. It is also a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.
The Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant Group, LLC is a San Francisco, California, based hotel and restaurant brand owned by IHG Hotels & Resorts (IHG) since 2015.
Marriott International, Inc. is an American multinational company that operates, franchises, and licenses lodging brands that include hotel, residential, and timeshare properties. Marriott International owns over 30 hotel and timeshare brands with 8,785 locations and 1,597,380 rooms across its network. Marriott International is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland. The company is the successor to the hospitality division of the Marriott Corporation, founded by J. Willard Marriott (1900–1985) and his wife Alice Marriott (1907–2000).
Sheraton Hotels and Resorts is an American international hotel chain owned by Marriott International. As of June 30, 2020, Sheraton operates 446 hotels with 155,617 rooms globally, including locations in North America, Africa, Asia Pacific, Central and South America, Europe, the Middle East and the Caribbean, in addition to 84 hotels with 23,092 rooms in the pipeline.
InterContinental Hotels & Resorts is a British-American luxury hotel brand created in 1946 by Pan Am founder Juan Trippe. It has been part of UK-based InterContinental Hotels Group since 1998. As of January 2023, there were 208 InterContinental hotels worldwide, with 70,287 rooms.
Gala Bingo is an online bingo and casino offering under the ownership of Entain.
The Omni King Edward Hotel, also known as the "King Eddy", is a historic luxury hotel in Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The hotel is located at 37 King Street East, and it occupies the entire block bounded by King Street on the north, Victoria Street on the east, Colborne Street on the south and Leader Lane on the west.
Le Méridien is an American upscale, design-focused international hotel brand with a European perspective. It was originally founded by Air France in 1972 and was later based in the United Kingdom. Marriott International now owns the chain. As of June 2021, it had a portfolio of 109 open hotels with 29,439 rooms and a pipeline of 37 hotels with 9,585 upcoming rooms.
The Kimpton Clocktower Hotel is a historic commercial building, now a hotel, at the corner of Oxford Street and Whitworth Street in Manchester, England. The building was originally constructed in segments from 1891 to 1932 as the Refuge Assurance Building.
De Vere is a hotels and leisure business, which until the 1990s was a brewing company known as Greenall's. It used to be listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.
Extended Stay America, Inc., headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, is the operator of an economy apartment hotel chain in the United States and Canada. Prior to June 2021, when the company was acquired by Blackstone Real Estate and the Starwood Capital Group, it was publicly traded as a "paired share" with ESH Hospitality, Inc., a real estate investment trust and the owner of the hotels. As of 2022, there are 650+ Extended Stay America branded hotels.
Regent Hotels & Resorts is a British-American luxury hospitality brand, founded by hotelier Robert H. Burns in 1970. After passing through different owners since foundation, it is currently jointly owned by IHG Hotels & Resorts and Formosa International Hotels Corporation since July 2018, with hotels and resorts in Asia and Europe.
Grand Metropolitan plc was a leisure, manufacturing and property conglomerate headquartered in England. The company was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index until it merged with Guinness plc to form Diageo in 1997.
Westin Hotels & Resorts is an American upscale hotel chain owned by Marriott International. As of June 30, 2020, the Westin Brand has 226 properties with 82,608 rooms in multiple countries in addition to 58 hotels with 15,741 rooms in the pipeline.
The Dilly London is a historic 5-star luxury hotel located at 21 Piccadilly in London, England.
The Principal York is an historic Grade II listed building on Station Road, adjacent to York railway station, England. It is a five-storey building of yellow Scarborough brick and was completed in 1878, a year after the present station opened.
Starwood Capital Group is an investment firm headquartered in Miami Beach, Florida. It is managed by Barry Sternlicht. It was co-founded by Sternlicht and Robert Faith in 1991. In 1993, Faith left Starwood to found Greystar Real Estate Partners.
Le Royal Méridien Chennai is a five-star luxury hotel located at the Guindy-Kathipara Junction on Anna Salai, Chennai, India. Initially built as Madras Hilton at an investment of ₹ 1,650 million, the hotel was, however, opened as Le Royal Meridien Chennai.
Four Pillars Hotels was a hotel chain operating in the United Kingdom. The group had six hotels, situated in Oxford, the Cotswolds and the Thames Valley, operating in the three and four star sector. In 2014 the company was acquired by American Starwood Capital Group for around £90 million.
