Quinlan Private To Buy Jurys

Confirming rumors reported by Dow Jones Newswires last week, Irish property investment group Quinlan Private announced this weekend that they will buy the Jurys Inn hotel chain from Jurys Doyle for €1.165 billion.

Bids for the Irish-based Jurys Doyle's budget hotel chain, which has 20 hotels in the U.K. and Ireland, were lodged with the Merrill Lynch & Co. (MER) and Dublin-based Crownway Investments last month, with Swiss-based private equity firm Lydian Capital Partners and the U.K.'s Whitbread plc reported to have been shortlisted before this weekend's decision..

Analysts suggested that Quinlan Private decided to bid for the hotel chain because 14 of the 20 Jurys Inn properties are freehold, and available for potential development in the future.

Quinlan Private, run by Irish businessman Derek Quinlan, has €8 billion to €9 billion in assets under management has extensive experience managing and operating hotels including the Four Seasons in Dublin, Prague and Budapest.

A spokesman for Jurys Doyle hotel group told Dow Jones Newswires Sunday that it now plans to buy more hotels in the East coast of the U.S. and luxury hotels in several important European cities.

The spokesman also confirmed that after the Jurys Inn sale, the company would have received €1.9 billion in asset sales in the last 18 months and that they intend to use this money to "significantly invest" in a number of its remaining 12 hotels.