Did you hear the one about the Burlington and the teaspoons?

If Ireland’s recent economic history could be compared to a hotel, it would be the Burlington in Dublin. From a bonkers boom-time property play to bust almost overnight, followed by a stunning comeback that generated huge profits for foreign investors, the parallels with this country’s macroeconomic fortunes are striking.

Built in the early 1970s, the 500-bed "Burlo", which now trades as the DoubleTree by Hilton and is about to be sold, spent the next three decades as Ireland's function room.

The country crowd came to associate it with the big team dinners that followed All-Ireland finals, while the pinstriped Dublin corporate set also knew every inch of the place. Until Convention Centre Dublin and the Citywest Hotel were built, the Burlo's 1,500-seat function room was by far the largest available for conferences and events.

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Bernard McNamara: paid €288 million for the Burlington Hotel just before the downturn. Photograph: Collins

Its huge functions became the stuff of legend within the hospitality industry. One particular story did the rounds, although nobody knows how true it really is.

Teaspoons

In the 1980s and early 1990s, the hotel’s “dinner dances” were served by casual, mostly female waitstaff. The “trolley dollies”, as they were very unkindly referred to by some other staff, were often related to one another and spanned generations. The like of these ladies have worked in every hotel function room in the land.

As anyone who worked in a hotel will attest, teaspoons are virtually a currency among waitstaff. They disappear fast when needed. So the older, wiser Burlington function staff apparently used to stash teaspoons in all sorts of odd places – behind cabinets, under corners of carpet, even high up amongst ceiling tiles – ready for their next shift.

As these ladies retired and stopped working functions, the location of their precious stash would go with them. When the function room was being revamped years later, so the legend goes, workers who lifted the carpets and ceiling tiles discovered thousands of hidden teaspoons, like piles of buried treasure.

By the time the Jurys Doyle group offloaded the Burlington at the height of the boom, the hotel was viewed through the same prism as Ireland before the Celtic Tiger: full of stories and character, but quite dated and unfashionable. It was a place full of sepia-tinted memories. Or were they simply brown?

Then Bernard McNamara paid €288 million for the hotel just before the tide went out, with plans for a glitzy €1 billion development, and it eventually ended up in receivership.

When Blackstone paid €67 million for it in 2012, people still spoke of the so-called "zombie hotels" that littered Ireland and the havoc that had been wreaked on the industry. The industry's turnaround since, however, has been simply stunning.

In hindsight, the price paid for the hotel by Blackstone was buttons and simply a factor of Bank of Scotland (Ireland)'s desire to get the hell out of Dodge.

When Blackstone bought it, it was said to be generating annual profits of about €5 million to €6 million, even as Ireland was only emerging from the economic haze. When it was put on the market earlier this year, prospective buyers are said to have been informed the hotel now generates profits of about €14 million.

Its returns have more than doubled in four years. So has its value. Blackstone drove growth at the hotel by spending in excess of €15 million on a total revamp of its rooms and public areas. All told, the US fund put less than €90 million into the property. DekaBank, a German asset manager, is now reputedly on the verge of paying somewhere close to €180 million for it.

Constrained capacity

What now for one of the city’s best-known hotels?

Hotel room rates in Dublin are still rising by more than 20 per cent annually, and things will stay rosy while capacity remains constrained. Competition for the hotel within its immediate locality will actually lessen in coming years, once the Ballsbridge hotel closes its doors.

Barring another economic crash, the Burlington will be extremely busy.

As announced this week, the Irish hotel group Dalata is in exclusive talks to lease the hotel from the would-be buyer. Pat McCann, the founder of Dalata, is a former chief executive of the Jurys Doyle group that sold the hotel to McNamara. He might not know where all the teaspoons are buried, but McCann is as familiar with the quirks of this property as anyone. Dalata is unlikely to do anything drastic with the hotel.

What about its name?

When Blackstone bought the hotel, it also owned the Hilton group, hence the convenient marriage with the brand. Blackstone has since floated Hilton, however, although it retains a stake of more than 40 per cent. Dalata is only at due-diligence stage, so it is unclear what brand the hotel will operate under, if a deal is done.

Since the Burlington was last sold, Dublin got a second DoubleTree – the Morrison Hotel on Dublin’s quays. Dalata also doesn’t operate any international brands such as Hilton in its existing portfolio. Depending upon the contractual arrangements, there may be no compelling reason for a buyer to retain the DoubleTree by Hilton brand.

Given that it is synonymous with the city, and given its putative new operator’s familiarity with the hotel’s history, will we see a return of the Burlington moniker – or its affectionately shortened version, the Burlo – in some shape or form?

FOOTNOTES

Meath man Peter Bellew has given his first big television interview in Malaysia since taking over from Christophe Mueller as chief executive of troubled Malaysia Airlines. The former Ryanair man, who was headhunted by Mueller before the German threw in the towel early in the summer after just a year, was in flying form, obviously.

Ethnic Malays are proud people, and just as there was for Mueller's appointment, there is consternation in some quarters in Malaysia as to why a foreigner – an orang putih (white man) – got the top job. Bellew was asked if he understood why.

"Of course I understand. If there was a Malaysian in charge of Ryanair or Aer Lingus, there would be a lot of noise about it," he replied, somewhat comparing apples with, er, orangs.

Showing his grip of the local lingo, he then used another Malay term for a white man to tell his detractors where to go: "But there will always be people who are not happy a mat salleh is in charge. Just get over it."

Mueller landed in hot water with the same detractors shortly before he left in June, with an interview in which he said he had found Malaysia workers asleep in hangars. Bellew was also asked about this.

"I haven't found anyone asleep, and I'm not sure Christophe did either," he replied, effectively throwing Mueller under a Boeing. He was then asked to explain how new productivity measures were being implemented. "People are walking faster," he replied. Talk about getting back to basics.

Like every self-respecting aviation executive, Bellew is also getting into scrapes with print journalists. Two weeks ago, he had a letter published in the New Straits Times lambasting the editor over a "sensationalised" front-page story. The fate of Malaysia's missing flight MH370 is still unknown, but the story was illustrated with a picture of a plunging aircraft.

"To place such a report on the front page is not befitting of a national publication such as NST," Bellew scolded. " We respectfully ask that NST be more sensitive and responsible in its reporting, which should be based on fact not speculation."

Tullow Oil chief executive Aidan Heavey this week received about 334,000 shares in the company under a 2005 bonus and incentive scheme. According to filings, he sold them at about £2.26 per share, netting himself about £750,000.

In February 2012, Tullow’s shares peaked at more than £15 – that is roughly seven times their value today. Tullow has also in recent years snubbed would-be approaches from prospective bidders at just slightly below that level.

Tullow has been extremely good to Heavey, who built the company. But if his timing was more clinical, it could have been so much better.