 | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Hospitality |
| Founded | 1965 |
| Headquarters | Uxbridge, England, UK |
Area served | United Kingdom |
Key people | Jon Scott CEO Quek Leng Chan Chairman |
| Revenue | £287m (2004) |
| Parent | GLH Hotels Management (UK) Ltd |
| Website | www |
Thistle Hotels, run by glh., is a UK-based hotel company with a portfolio of 7 Central London hotels, one at London Heathrow and one in Dorset, [1] operating in the three and four star sector.
It was set up by Scottish & Newcastle in 1965, to combine its own traditional legacy hotels with purpose built hotels. Mount Charlotte Investments bought thirty four Thistle hotels from S&N, and acquired the Thistle brand name for £645m in November 1989. During the subsequent recession, the debt taken on to fund the transaction became unsustainable, resulting in Mount Charlotte being taken over by Brierley Investments of New Zealand for £664m in 1990.
The chain was the main shirt sponsor for Leeds United AFC from 1993 to 1996.
In 1997, the company floated on the Stock Exchange, to become Thistle Hotels plc, valued at £620m. In September 1998, it sold 30 provincial hotels to Grace Hotels (owned by the Lehman Brothers investment bank) for £62.7m, becoming managed by Peel Hotels. In July 1999, it sold the Charles Dickens Hotel in London to the Ryan Hotel Group for £20m. In June 2002, it initially sold 37 of its hotels to Orb Estates of Jersey for £598m, continuing to manage the properties, but the hotels are eventually sold to Atlantic Hotels for £700m and operated under the Thistle name. In June 2003, the company was bought for £627m by BIL International, a private equity company based in Singapore (but registered in Bermuda) owned by the Hong Leong Group and the majority shareholder since 1990. Thistle Hotels was delisted from the London Stock Exchange. In 2004, it opened its Cumberland Hotel in London [2] after a £95 million renovation, which operated under the Guoman brand. In May 2005, it sold six hotels to the Topland Group under a leaseback deal for £185m.
It used to be based in The Calls in Leeds, then moved to Uxbridge.
In 2004, budget hotel company Travelodge bought two Thistle Hotels in London, the Thistle London Islington and the Thistle London Ryan.
In 2008, Thistle Hotels announced that it was currently undergoing a re-branding of £100 million to maintain consistency across the group.
Thistle Cardiff the Parc reopened in September 2008 after being closed for 17 months due to fire [3] and has been refurbished throughout. The hotel underwent a £15m transformation.
In 2015, the managed part of the estate was sold by its owners CIT Holdings Ltd. glh. was unsuccessful in its bid, [4] meaning the majority of the provincial estate changed management, being run by Accor Hotels. [5]
Thistle operates five luxury hotels in London under the Guoman brand, namely the Tower Hotel, the Charing Cross, the Royal Horseguards, The Clermont Victoria (formally Amba Hotel Grosvenor) [6] and previously The Cumberland Hotel. It used to operate the Thistle Marble arch; the property is now managed by Amba. [7] [8]
The CEO was Tim Scoble until 2012, he was the CEO of Little Chef for two years from 2004 to 2006. He was succeeded by Mike De Noma who was CEO from 2012 - 2016, followed by Neil Gallagher from 2016 to 2018 and Alan Morgan from 2018 to 2020. The current CEO of GLH Hotels Management (UK) Limited is Jon Scott who took over the role in September 2021 from interim CEO Gavin Taylor.[ citation needed ]
Harry Ramsden's is a fast food restaurant chain based in the United Kingdom which offers fish and chips and assorted themed dishes. The business has 35 owned and franchised outlets throughout the UK and Ireland.
J. Lyons & Co. was a British restaurant chain store, food manufacturing, and hotel conglomerate founded in 1884 by Joseph Lyons and his brothers in law, Isidore and Montague Gluckstein. Lyons’ first teashop opened in Piccadilly, London in 1894, and from 1909 they developed into a chain of teashops, with the firm becoming a staple of the High Street in the UK. At its peak the chain numbered around 200 cafes. The teashops provided for tea and coffee, with food choices consisting of hot dishes and sweets, cold dishes and sweets, and buns, cakes and rolls.
Investcorp is a global manager of alternative investment products, for private and institutional clients. Founded in Bahrain in 1982, the firm has offices in United States, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, India, China, Japan and Singapore. Investcorp's principal client base is in the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, but it also has a growing base of institutional clients in North America, Europe, and Asia.
Accor S.A. is a French multinational hospitality company that owns, manages and franchises hotels, resorts and vacation properties. It is the largest hospitality company in Europe, and the sixth largest hospitality company worldwide.
Grosvenor Group Limited is an internationally diversified property group, which traces its origins to 1677 and has its headquarters in London, England. It has a global reach, now in 62 international cities, with offices in 14 of them, operated on behalf of its owners, the Duke of Westminster and his family. It has four regional development and investment businesses and a portfolio of indirect investments. Its sectors include residential, office, retail, industrial, along with hotels.
Mitchells & Butlers plc runs circa 1,784 managed pubs, bars and restaurants throughout the United Kingdom. The company's headquarters are in Birmingham, England. The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.
La Quinta Inns & Suites is a chain of limited service hotels in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Honduras. La Quinta Holdings, Inc. first sold shares to the public in April 2014. La Quinta has headquarters in Irving, Texas. As of December 31, 2018, the company owns and operates 914 properties with 89,456 rooms.
The Tower Hotel is a large hotel situated on the north bank of the River Thames, on the east side of Tower Bridge, in London.
Morgans Hotel Group was a global, publicly-traded hospitality company founded by Ian Schrager and specialized in the boutique hotel category. Its foundations were laid in 1984 with the opening of the namesake Morgans Hotel in New York City. MHG was listed on the NASDAQ exchange for over a decade.
Outrigger Resorts & Hotels is a Honolulu-based luxury hotel chain and management company that operates hotels, condominiums, and vacation resort properties in Hawaii, the Asia-Pacific region, and the islands of the Indian Ocean.
Extended Stay America, Inc., headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, is the operator of an economy apartment hotel chain in the United States and Canada. As of December 31, 2019, the company owned and operated 557 hotel properties consisting of approximately 61,900 rooms and franchised or managed 73 hotel properties consisting of approximately 7,500 rooms. 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.
Forte Group plc was a British hotel and restaurant company. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index until it was acquired by Granada in 1996. Its head office was in the London Borough of Camden.
GLH Hotels Management (UK) Limited NOW CLERMONT HOTEL MANAGEMENT LIMITED is a British-based global hotel company, headquartered in London, and subsidiary of GL Limited.
The Royal Horseguards Hotel is a London hotel situated in the area of Whitehall. It is operated by Guoman Hotels, a subsidiary of Thistle Hotels.
The Hotel Collection was a group of 4-star mid-market hotels operating in the United Kingdom. The group also included 18 health and leisure clubs. It ceased to exist as a separate entity, in 2015, when it was injected into the Amaris Hospitality portfolio who progressively sold off all the hotels
Principal Hotel Company is a British hotel and conference venue operator headquartered in Harrogate, England.
Topland Group is a British property and investment company. In 2014, Topland was described as one of the world's largest privately owned property and investment groups.
Michael (‘Mike’) Bernard DeNoma is an American banker and businessman. He is a director and board member of the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children, where he has held the position for seventeen years. DeNoma was previously at KBZ Bank, Myanmar’s largest private bank. where he served as the bank’s CEO from 2017 - 2020. DeNoma’s career has seen him participate as Executive Board member at some of the most successful banks and brands in Asia. Examples include chairman and board member of Chinatrust Commercial Bank and board member of Standard Chartered.
Hussain Sajwani, is an Emirati billionaire businessman and the founder of the property development company, DAMAC Properties, and his private investment company, DAMAC Group.
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| Budget | |
| Mid-market | |
| Upscale / full service |
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| Defunct | |
