Crerar Hotels to manage 7 more ex-Swallow sites

Edinburgh-based Crerar Hotels has agreed a deal with Matrix Asset Management to operate and manage six former Swallow Hotels sites. Separately, it agreed to manage another ex-Swallow property, the Fishers Hotel in Pitlochry, for LaSalle Asset Management.

The news follows the company’s announcement in November that it had signed a management deal with London-based REIT for 13 former Swallow sites. Swallow Hotels was part of the London & Edinburgh Swallow Group, which went bankrupt last September.

Swallow, UK’s fastest growing hotel chain in 2006, collapsed after massive losses. It had leased 671 sites across Britain, and employed around 7,300 staff. The portfolio included around 70 hotels and 120 tenanted and managed pubs across Scotland.

The six hotels included in the Matrix Asset Management deal are the Thainstone House Hotel and the Waterside Inn respectively in Inverurie and Peterhead, in North-Eastern Scotland; the Station Hotel in the port city of Ayr; the Bower Hotel in Manchester; the Buckatree Hall Hotel in Telford, Shropshire and the Chaucer Hotel in Canterbury, Kent.

Crerar Hotels’ ceo Paddy Crerar told newspaper The Leisure Property Report that 'the hotels will be assessed and refocused where necessary to ensure they can deliver their full potential - this will mean a review of the hotel teams and every likelihood of further recruitment, particularly on sales teams'.