The Jurys agreed takeover bid for Doyle Hotels is an audacious move by Peter Malone and Richard Hooper and one that took most in the industry by surprise.

The family rows that have dogged Doyle were well-known but most believed that the mechanism that would have allowed David Doyle to get his money out of the company would have come through a flotation which would have at least kept the management of the company in Doyle hands.

Now Jurys will have firm management control of the enlarged group with Peter Malone, Pat McCann and Barry Sheehan holding the three key positions. All the Doyle family will have - apart from lots of Jurys shares - are non-executive directorships, although there is speculation that Doyle general manager, John Glynn, will find himself elevated to a board position not long after the marriage is consummated.

But the takeover of Doyle at the suggested price of between £150 million and £200 million must put a question mark over the future ownership of the three other large hotel groups in the State - the publicly-quoted Ryan, the family-owned Fitzpatrick and the State-owned (through Aer Rianta) Great Southern.

In recent years, Ryan has consistently traded at a discount to Jurys with a general view in the market that Jurys has been a far more dynamic organisation - "a Lada compared to a Beemer", as one analyst has unkindly described it.

That perception is reflected in the ratings in the market, where Ryan is trading on a historic p/e of little more than nine compared to Jurys p/e of 12. Compared to those multiples, the Jurys-Doyle deal is apparently being done on a multiple of at least 15.

And with the Jurys-Doyle deal creating one Irish hotels giant, there will undoubtedly be pressure for further rationalisation in the industry. Where does Ryan fit into that rationalisation and is a bid or merger with Fitzpatrick a realistic possibility? Ryan currently has a market value of around £46 million.

Paddy Fitzpatrick - unlike the Doyles - has run a family company where the various family members actually get on with each other and which has expanded profitably into the New York market. He has also indicated that he plans to bring Fitzpatrick Hotels - 30 per cent owned by venture capital group ACT - to the stock market in the next couple of years.

Putting a value on Fitzpatrick is difficult given the lack of financial information on the company, but in January 1996 when ACT invested £6 million for a 30-40 per cent stake, the company was worth around £20 million. That valuation has undoubtedly risen since then and is probably in excess of £30 million if not going on £40 million. Are Ryan and Fitzpatrick potential marriage partners? Could Paddy Fitzpatrick and his sons gel with Conor McCarthy and Pat Coyle?

There is no doubt that the two hotel groups are a good match - with little overlap, and with Ryan's presence in Europe complementing Fitzpatrick's presence in the US there is clear commercial logic to a link-up.

As for Great Southern, are Ryan or Fitzpatrick potential bidders for a chain that might carry a price tag of £35 million based on the sort of multiples the Jurys/Doyle deal was done at?

Paddy Fitzpatrick said he would like to see a Fitzpatrick hotel in every Irish city. Buying Great Southern would certainly go a long way to fulfilling that ambition.

One thing is clear. The Jurys/Doyle deal will be a forerunner of plenty of corporate activity in the Irish hotels industry.