 | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Hospitality |
| Founded | 1965 |
| Headquarters | Uxbridge, England, UK |
Area served | United Kingdom |
Key people | Gavin Taylor CEO Quek Leng Chan Chairman |
| Revenue | £287m (2004) |
| Parent | Clermont Hotel Group |
| Website | www |
Thistle Hotels, a subsidiary of the Clermont Hotel Group, is a UK-based hotel company with a portfolio of 8 Central London hotels, one at London Heathrow and one in nerby Bedfordshire, [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]
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 the Clermont Hotel Group is Gavin Taylor.[ citation needed ]
Clermont Hotel Group, parent company of Thistle, also previously operates three hotels in London under the Guoman brand, Tower Hotel, The Cumberland and the Royal Horseguards Hotel, which have now rebranded under their own names.
Harry Ramsden's is a fast food restaurant chain based in the United Kingdom which offers fish and chips and assorted themed dishes. Founded by restaurant entrepreneur Harry Ramsden in Guiseley, West Yorkshire, in 1928, it was sold to his partner in 1954. Since then it has a succession of corporate owners: Associated Fisheries, Merryweathers, Granada, Compass, SSP, BVL and Deep Blue. As of 2025, it has about 8 restaurants in the UK.
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.
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.
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.
La Quinta by Wyndham, also known as La Quinta Inn & Suites is a chain of limited service hotels in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Honduras owned by Wyndham Hotels & Resorts. La Quinta Holdings, Inc. first sold shares to the public in April 2014. La Quinta has headquarters in Irving, Texas. As of December 31, 2023, the company owns and operates 918 properties with 89,391 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.
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. 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.
The Bayford Group is a British company founded in 1919 in Leeds, England. For over 100 years The Bayford Group has developed and invested in a diverse portfolio of companies. Energy has always been the core of the business, from the original 1919 coal merchant business set up by 4 soldiers in Yorkshire, and named after the village where they had been demobbed, Bayford in Hertfordshire – oil distribution in the 60s, energy supply in the 90s to the multimillion pound acquisition of Gulf Gas & Power almost a century later in 2017.
interactive investor Limited is a subscription-based online investment service in the United Kingdom, founded in 1995 by the entrepreneur Sherry Coutu. It provides financial information, as well as investment tools. It is the UK's biggest flat-fee investment platform, with £59 billion of assets under administration and over 400,000 customers. The company is based in Manchester, with offices in London and Leeds. Since 2022 it has been a subsidiary of UK-based investment company Abrdn.
Clermont Hotel Group, formerly named GLH Hotels Management and branded as glh., 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 Clermont Hotel Group, 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.
Signa Holding GmbH is Austria's largest privately owned real estate company. Signa Holding GmbH announced insolvency proceedings at the end of November 2023. The company will apply for self-administration restructuring proceedings at the Commercial Court of Vienna.
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 to 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.
Frasers Property is a Thai-Singaporean multinational real estate and property management group which develops, owns, and manages properties globally. It is owned by Thai Chinese billionaire business magnate Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi. The group owns and manages properties in the commercial, residential, hospitality, retail and industrial and logistics sectors. Headquartered in Singapore, it trades on the Singapore Exchange Securities Trading Limited (SGX-ST). It also sponsors real estate investment trusts (REITs), including one stapled trust, two of which are also listed on the SGX-ST.
Manger Hotels was a major 20th-century national chain of luxury hotels, full service motor inns, and upscale motels. Originally founded in 1907 as a chain of luxury hotels by Julius and William Manger, the company shifted to extensive development of large strategically located motor inns and motels in the 1960s.
Media related to Thistle Hotels at Wikimedia Commons
Hotel chains in the United Kingdom | |
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| Upscale / full service |
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| Defunct | |
