Hotel portfolio makes over €35m

A portfolio of seven hotels first offered for sale in January has sold for over €35 million.

The so-called "Crystal Collection" included the Glenroyal Hotel & Leisure Club in Maynooth, Co Kildare; Fels Point Hotel in Tralee, Co Kerry; Johnstown House Hotel & Spa in Enfield, Co Meath; the Killeshin Hotel in Portlaoise, Co Laois; South Court Hotel in Raheen, Co Limerick; the Maldron Hotel at Barnstown, Wexford; and the Metropole Hotel on MacCurtain Street, Cork.

The 113-bedroom Glenroyal was bought by the Comer Group for €10.5 million; Cork's Metropole was bought by UK-based Philip Hotel Holdings for over €5 million (€1m over the guide); Fels Point was purchased by the parents of 2011 Washington DC Rose, Dorothy Henggeler, for over its guide price of €4m; Hotel group Dalata agreed to acquire the Maldron Hotel Wexford for €3.53 million; and businessman Pat McDonagh, who set up the Supermacs fast food chain, bought the Killeshin Hotel which was guided at €3 million.

The remaining two hotels, Johnstown House and the South Court, made close to their guide prices of €6.5m and €2m respectively.

Irish buyers

John Hughes

, a director at selling agent CBRE, says most of the hotels sold for close to their guide prices. “The portfolio generated a good deal of interest, both domestically and internationally, but in the end most were purchased by Irish buyers.”

Around 60 Irish hotels changed hands in 2014 with an aggregate sale price of €555m. Market observers expect this figure to be comfortably surpassed this year. Agent DTZ reported recently that €126 million worth of hotels were transacted in the first quarter of this year, up 37 per cent on the first quarter of last year.