The owners of one of London’s largest privately-held luxury hotel empires are reviewing options for its future.
The Grange’s Matharu brothers are investigating a new future for their £979m London hotel empire, which could include a restructuring of its ownership.
The brothers and founding partners, Harpal, Raj and Tony, are all approaching retirement age.
The most likely option for the business is the sale of some of its 19 hotels to allow one or more of the brothers to exit the business.
Hotel investors have already begun circling the Grange Hotel business in anticipation of a sale.
Other options include bringing in new debt to replace its current loans, which totalled £220m as of 31 March 2015. That debt matures in December 2018. It could also look to replace an existing equity source.
Managing director Tony Matharu said: “As managing director of the company I am always looking for opportunities for growth and shall continue to do so.”
The three brothers started the Grange business 25 years ago, converting London offices to hotels.
Grange Hotels has 19 properties spread across prime central London, comprising more than 2,000 bedrooms. Trophy assets include the 433-bedroom Grange St Paul’s, EC4, and the 370-bedroom Grange Tower Hill, E1.
The brothers have never sold any of their properties. If a sale were to go ahead, sources said it would likely be of some of the smaller assets in the portfolio – such as the 120-bedroom Grange Bracknell in Windsor, Berkshire – which do not fit the company’s luxury profile.
The Matharu brothers were included in this year’s Sunday Times Rich List with a fortune of £862m. The latest accounts for the company show a turnover of £125.9m and profit of £63m for the year ended 31 March 2015.
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