IRELAND’S BIGGEST HOTEL operator has bought two more hotels, snapping up four-star properties in Galway and Wexford for €31.7 million – but it still has plenty of cash to spend on more deals.
The Dalata Hotel Group purchased both the 195-room Clayton Hotel in Ballybrit, Co. Galway and the 157-room Whites Hotel in Wexford town.
The company has been running both hotels through management contracts since 2009 and the buyouts bring its total spending on six hotels to €65 million since the group was sold to the public in a float earlier this year.
Like many deals since the property bubble burst, the sale prices are a fraction of the hotels’ boom-time development costs.
The Whites Hotel, also known as Whites of Wexford, got a €55 million makeover in 2006 when it was reworked to become one of the region’s major conference venues.
Plenty of change left from €256 million
Dalata’s latest spend follows its purchase earlier this year of the Tower Hotel in Derry for £4.375 million (€5.5 million), although the buyouts still represent just over a quarter of the €265 million it raised when it listed on the stock market in March.
Davy Stockbrokers said it expected the two latest purchases would add 20% to the company’s earnings and the deals were “low-risk and represent good use of the group’s cash”.
Dalata has been forecasting increased growth this year and through 2015 as the tourism industry continues to recover after the recession.
A recent Fáilte Ireland survey found businesses in the tourism sector were feeling more positives about their prospects than before 2007 and 82% of hotels reported their trade was up this year compared to 2013.
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