“ So now we know – it is increasingly obvious Premier Inn will be sold to an unknown international investor with unknown intentions probably even before the proposed hotel could be opened. Fears people are expressing for some unknown future reuse of the proposed hotel building should be fears for now.
Reputable financial media coverage of Whitbread’s sale of Costa Coffee to Coca Cola reveals the company’s policy is being dictated by american billionaire asset stripper Paul Singer’s vulture hedge fund Elliot Advisors. More and more articles report Premier Inn is their next target.
Despite comments by Whitbread management beyond reasonable doubt the current massive expansion of the Premier Inn portfolio is being used as a bait and switch operation by activist investors. The brand name is being used to obtain planning permission to build new Premier Inns inevitably leading to the business being swallowed up by a larger international operator. Unlike Coca Cola, who were diversifying into a new market, the buyer will undoubtably be an existing overseas hotel operator who will wish to expand their own branded operation with its own operating policy and expectations of individual properties.
The only delay will be seeing through outstanding planning applications and also splitting the property ownership and hotel operation portfolios through a leaseback facility to maximise the value of both assets. It is implied in the proposal that such an separation of ownership and operation is already in place for the Marketplace.
Promises made by the applicant are core to a whole raft of planning considerations and completely vital to the hotel’s construction and operation as proposed. Any such promises made on the basis it is in the applicant’s interest to resolve issues such as impact on neighbours, traffic and parking are meaningless if the applicant will not be the operator. All they need is to tick three boxes – “hotel”, “100 plus rooms” “restaurant and bar”. Everything else is just window dressing to get planning approval.
Given ridiculous over expansion by many hotel operators the certain over provision of rooms will lead to many buildings being sold off or repurposed. We simply do not know what sort of management we will get or what anything built would be used for within the broad C1 planning approval. What we would get in terms of a building are the bricks and mortar of an inner city hostel prefabricated for future urban degeneration. ”