Britannia buys Glasgow Premier Inn for £8.5m

Britannia Hotels has acquired the 278-bedroom Premier Inn Glasgow City Centre (Charing Cross) off a guide price of £8.5m.

Whitbread, which owned the hotel, is reconfiguring its network of hotels in Glasgow following the opening of the 249-bedroom Premier Inn and Bar + Block restaurant at St Enoch Square last June.

The acquisition is Britannia's 64th hotel and takes its total room count to almost 12,300.

Alex Langsam, managing director at Britannia, said: "I am delighted with our latest acquisition which will be our fifth hotel in Scotland. Glasgow is a classic Britannia Hotels location where people come to work and play, and we will provide great value accommodation for these guests. This city-centre, high rise property joins the city, coast and country hotels we offer across our group which also includes Pontins Holiday Parks. We remain keen to grow our group further using the cash resources we have generated over the years which means we can move quickly to secure hotels on an all cash basis."

Jeremy Jones, head of hotels brokerage at Christie & Co, said: "After a competitive bidding process we are delighted to complete this important sale to Britannia Hotels, which follows on the heels of our success acting in the sale of the Lorne hotel, Glasgow. We are experiencing higher demand for such city-centre hotels."

Brian Sheldon, regional director of Scotland for Christie & Co, who supported the sale on a local level, added: "This is a prime example of the buoyancy across the Glasgow and wider Scottish hotel market at present, with the demand for accommodation across Scotland on the rise. We are currently speaking with buyers across all price points with genuine aspirations to add to their portfolios and often surpassing client expectations with local, wider UK and international buyers as a result."