Maybourne Hotel Group
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Maybourne is a
British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...
luxury
hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a re ...
operator, which owns and manages
The Berkeley The Berkeley is a 5-star luxury hotel located at Wilton Place in Knightsbridge, London. The hotel is owned and managed by the Maybourne Hotel Group, which also owns The Connaught and Claridge's in Mayfair, London. History 1800s and early ...
,
Claridge's Claridge's is a 5-star hotels, 5-star hotel at the corner of Brook Street, London, Brook Street and Davies Street in Mayfair, London. The hotel is owned and managed by the Maybourne Hotel Group. History Founding Claridge's traces its origins to ...
, The Connaught and The Emory in
London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
, The Maybourne Beverly Hills in Los Angeles and The Maybourne Riviera in
Roquebrune-Cap-Martin Roquebrune-Cap-Martin (; or ; ; ), simply Roquebrune until 1921, is a Communes of France, commune in the Alpes-Maritimes Departments of France, department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region, Southeastern France, betw ...
.


History and background

Maybourne, formerly the Savoy Hotel Group, has been operating luxury hotels in London with origins that go back over 200 years. The group was renamed when the
Savoy Hotel The Savoy Hotel is a luxury hotel located in the Strand in the City of Westminster in central London, England. Built by the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte with profits from his Gilbert and Sullivan opera productions, it opened on 6 August 1 ...
was sold off from the original group of four hotels – The Savoy, Claridge's, The Berkeley and The Connaught. The oldest hotel in the group is The Connaught, which was originally built as the Prince of Saxe Coburg Hotel in 1815. It was renamed The Connaught in 1917 after
Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in January 1901. Her reign of 63 year ...
's third son, Prince Arthur, the first Duke of Connaught. The Maybourne name was formed when a group of Irish investors, headed by Derek Quinlan, bought the Savoy group of hotels from Blackstone and Colony Capital in 2003 for £750m. It was decided soon afterwards that the Savoy Hotel did not fit into the plans, thus this hotel was sold to Kingdom Holding for approximately £250m. As the three remaining hotels were in a very poor state of repair, one of the investors, Paddy McKillen, immediately set out on a plan to completely refurbish the properties, beginning with The Connaught. Finance for the purchase of the group was provided by
Anglo Irish Bank Anglo Irish Bank was an Republic of Ireland, Irish bank headquartered in Dublin from 1964 to 2011. It began to wind down after nationalisation in 2009. In July 2011 Anglo Irish merged with the Irish Nationwide Building Society, forming a new co ...
. When the financial crisis hit, Anglo Irish Bank was not able to survive, and the group's loans were transferred to
National Asset Management Agency The National Asset Management Agency (NAMA; ) is a body created by the Government of Ireland in late 2009 in response to the Irish financial crisis and the deflation of the Irish property bubble. NAMA functions as a '' bad bank'', acquiring ...
(NAMA), a workout bank created by the Government of Ireland in response to the Irish financial crisis. In a controversial move, NAMA sold the loans which were among the bank's best to the UK's
Barclay brothers Sir David Rowat Barclay (27 October 1934 – 10 January 2021) and Sir Frederick Hugh Barclay (born 27 October 1934), commonly referred to as the "Barclay Brothers" or "Barclay Twins", were British billionaire brothers, of whom Frederick Barclay ...
for their full par value plus all interest owed. This gave the Barclay brothers a once in a lifetime opportunity to launch a hostile attack on the hotel company. The Barclay brothers owned the Ritz Hotel in London and always nurtured an interest in the three Maybourne hotels. They immediately set a pre-pack administration in motion in an attempt to eliminate McKillen's shares and take over the company. McKillen went to the High Court on the day the attack was launched and succeeded in blocking the takeover attempt. This set in motion the most expensive High Court legal action of its time. The case became extremely bitter between McKillen and the brothers lasting five years and costing over £50m. The Barclay brothers amassed shares from original shareholders in the Maybourne Hotel group which McKillen claimed was illegal. McKillen lost every case in the marathon legal action but effectively wore down the Barclay brothers and their interest in the company was successfully transferred to the Qatari royal family. McKillen is no longer a shareholder of the hotel group but provides a consultancy service to the group on a day-to-day basis. In December 2019, Maybourne acquired the Montage Hotel in
Beverly Hills Beverly Hills is a city located in Los Angeles County, California, United States. A notable and historic suburb of Los Angeles, it is located just southwest of the Hollywood Hills, approximately northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Beverly Hil ...
, California, and said the acquisition was part of a global expansion strategy.


Hotels

The Connaught on Carlos Place, Mayfair was closed for a year of restoration in 2008. It was reopened totally restored including a modern wing with 121 rooms, an Aman Spa, an underground swimming pool and a restaurant operated by 3 star Michelin chef, Helene Darroze. The chef Jean George Vongerichten runs the hotel's all-day dining restaurant and also the recently opened Connaught Grill. The Connaught bar has won international awards including World's Best Bar (Tales of the Cocktail) and has been voted the best bar in Europe (World's 50 Best 2019). Claridge's opened in 1898. Designed by CW Stephens, it is located in the heart of Mayfair and became famous for its
Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French (), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first Art Deco in Paris, appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920 ...
design. By 2004, Claridge's with its famous lobby was also in a poor state of repair. McKillen with the architect Michael Blair won a major planning permission to excavate a five-level basement under the hotel by hand. The hotel maintained normal business while this major work was being carried out. These works were completed in 2022. In 2019, the hotel unveiled a new restaurant, Davies and Brook, run by chef Daniel Humm, former holder of World's best restaurant at Eleven Madison Park in New York. The hotel is embarking on an ongoing series of room and suite restorations, recently unveiling a new Royal Suite, an Empress Eugenie Suite and a Prince Alexander Suite. The Berkeley, which was built on its present site in 1972 in Knightsbridge, has been completely renovated over the last few years. In 2017 a major contemporary front façade face lift was unveiled. It was designed by The Pritzker prize-winning architect
Richard Rogers Richard George Rogers, Baron Rogers of Riverside (23 July 1933 – 18 December 2021) was a British-Italian architect noted for his modernist and constructivist designs in high-tech architecture. He was the founder at Rogers Stirk Harbour + ...
. Michelin starred chef
Marcus Wareing Marcus Wareing (born 29 June 1970) is an English celebrity chef who was Chef-Owner of the one- Michelin-starred restaurant Marcus until its permanent closure in December 2023. Since 2014, Wareing has been a judge on '' MasterChef: The Professiona ...
has his famous restaurant at the Berkeley, and it is home to the Blue Bar.
Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...
–based designer Andre Fu completed a series of new pavilion penthouse suites at the hotel in 2018. On 20 December 2019, Maybourne acquired Montage Beverly Hills, its first hotel outside London. It was announced that it would be known as The Maybourne Beverly Hills.


References

{{UK Hotels Hotel chains Hospitality companies of the United Kingdom Hospitality companies established in 2005 David and Frederick Barclay