Principal Hotel Company is a British hotel and conference venue operator headquartered in
Harrogate
Harrogate ( ) is a spa town and the administrative centre of the Borough of Harrogate in North Yorkshire, England. Historically in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the town is a tourist destination and its visitor attractions include its spa w ...
, England.
History
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
The Kimpton Fitzroy London is a historic five-star hotel, located on Russell Square, Bloomsbury, in the London Borough of Camden. From its opening in 1900 until 2018, it was known as the Hotel Russell.
History
The Hotel Russell was built in 18 ...
, opened, under unrelated ownership.
The modern Principal Hotel Company was founded in 1984. In 1992, when the chain had 18 properties, it went bankrupt during a recession. Two years later, in 1994, a former operations director of the chain, Tony Troy, led a management buyout for £68 million by Bridgepoint Capital. In 2001, Principal Hotels was sold to
Nomura International Plc for £255 million, with Troy staying on as managing director. 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. In 2006, the chain was sold by the
Royal Bank of Scotland to the
private equity firm
A private equity firm is an investment management company that provides financial backing and makes investments in the private equity of startup or operating companies through a variety of loosely affiliated investment strategies including lev ...
Permira
Permira is a global investment firm. Founded in 1985, the firm advises funds with assets under management of €60+ billion. The Permira funds have made approximately 300 private equity investments in four key sectors: Technology, Consumer, Ser ...
. In 2007, Principal Hotels sold their physical hotel properties to aAIM Group for £270 million and leased them back. That same year, the chain bought Hayley Conference Hotels, becoming the Principal Hayley Group.
In 2009, it expanded through the purchase of two venues from the collapsed group
The Real Hotel Company 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. In February 2013, Lloyds sold the group to the American investment company
Starwood Capital Group for 360 million.
In November 2016, Principal Hayley Group went through a major rebranding and re-investment project. The group became known 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). In September 2017, De Vere relaunched with 22 locations and announced the sale of 20 non-core hotels. In December 2017, the Wychwood Park hotel was sold to
Mokan Hotels Company for £8 million.
In May 2018,
Fonciere des Regions and the
InterContinental Hotels Group bought the chain from Starwood Capital for $1.1 billion, with FdR acquiring the underlying property assets and IHG taking over management of the hotels. IHG announced that some Principal Hotels would be rebranded as
Kimpton Hotels.
Locations
The company operates 12 locations in the UK.
Governance
* CEO : Tony Troy
References
External links
Company website
{{UK Hotels
Companies based in Harrogate
Hospitality companies established in 1984
Hospitality companies established in 2004
Hotel chains in the United Kingdom