THE BUDGET HOTEL group sold by Jury’s Doyle to Quinlan Private for €1.165 billion had sales of about €175 million in its first year of operation.
Vesway Ltd, the holding company for the Jury’s Inns chain of budget hotels, had sales of £65 million sterling (€102 million) between May and December 31st, 2007, according to accounts due to be filed next week.
The Derek Quinlan-led consortium, Quinlan Private, bought the inns from its then parent, Jury’s Doyle, midway through 2007 for €1.165 billion.
It is understood that in the 12 months ended May 31st last, its first full year of trading, Vesway had sales of €175 million. The figure is based on its seven-month performance.
The group’s operating profit for the May to December 2007 period was €23 million.
In its first year of operation, its earnings before interest, tax and write-offs was €67 million.
The group ended the year with €1.2 billion in fixed assets and with about €58 million in cash.
Vesway is now 50 per cent owned by Quinlan and 50 per cent by the Oman Investment Fund, a sovereign investment fund based in the sultanate of Oman, a middle-eastern country located between the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
The group has 24 hotels, seven of them in Ireland, with 5,850 rooms, and employs 1,645 people.
Since the deal was done almost two years ago, much of its expansion has been focused on Britain, where it opened hotels in Plymouth and Brighton in 2007 and Liverpool in 2008.
The company opened a hotel in Sheffield in the English midlands in January and plans to launch a further seven new properties this year. Six will be in Britain, but it is planning to open its first European hotel in Prague in the Czech Republic later this year. It has also secured a site in Budapest.
At the time that Quinlan Private bought the hotel chain, Mr Quinlan said that the company intended to expand it into central and eastern Europe under the Jury’s Inns brand.
The company had 20 hotels at the time that the deal was done. Its more immediate plans include further British properties.
The six other locations earmarked for this year include Aberdeen in Scotland, and Exeter and Portsmouth in southern England.
In 2010, it will open hotels in Bradford and Newcastle in northern England and Glasgow in Scotland.
