Central Office
Express by Holiday Inn Birmingham NEC
Bickenhill Parkway
Birmingham B40 1QA
           
  Tel: +44(0) 121 780 0820
Fax: +44(0) 121 780 0821
           
   
Press Release: 15 February 2008

   << Previous Press Release

      Next Press Release >>

morethanhotels appoints new Chief Executive and Finance Officer
 
morethanhotels, operators of 11 Express by Holiday Inns in the UK, has recruited general manager of a five-star London hotel to head up the group.

Clifford Grauers becomes the new chief executive at morethanhotels and is joined by Brendan Gillespie as the new chief financial officer.

Grauers joins from London’s five-star Great Eastern Hotel where he was general manager.

He has spent 20 years at Hyatt including general manager positions at Hyatt Regency

Birmingham, the Park Hyatt Tokyo and Hyatt Regency Saipan.

Gillespie was previously company secretary at Macdonald Hotels.

US private equity company JER bought the morethanhotels portfolio in October last year.

morethanhotels has also added the 129 room Express by Holiday Inn Stevenage to its portfolio.

The deal brings the total number of rooms in the group’s portfolio to 1,399 and was handled by property agent Christie & Co. Grauers said of the deal: “We have ambitious plans to grow the company and this acquisition will provide a platform for further developments.”

Ends

     
 

About JER:

JER Partners is the private equity investment arm of the J.E.Robert Companies, a real estate investment management company with more than 26 years of experience in sourcing, underwriting and managing a broad spectrum of real estate equity investments and debt products in North America, Europe and recently the emerging markets. 

JER Partners has been active in Europe since 1995.  As European President of JER Partners, Malcolm Le May heads a team of 34, based in London. It recently closed its third European fund, JER Europe Fund III, with €809m of equity.

JER Europe Fund III has invested in the United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Belgium and Turkey. These investments include the acquisition of a 50% share in a Swiss hotel company and the 50:50 joint venture acquisition of the Great Eastern Hotel in London.For more information on JER, please visit www.jer.com.

For further information, please contact:

HeadLand Consultancy:   Clare Allison 020 7367 5234  or Tom Gough  020 7367 5228

JER Partners:  Angus Dodd  07775 584935