Wolverhampton's Mercure Goldthorn Hotel bought by Talash group
Wolverhampton's Mercure Goldthorn Hotel has been sold to the fast-growing Talash Hotels Group, which already has plans to expand the number of rooms.
Headed by brothers Sanjay and Ravi Kathuria, the Talash group has now bought six hotels in just the last 13 months.
Along with the Mercure Hotel Telford and Walsall's Barons Court Hotel the group has 13 hotels across the Midlands.
Sanjay Kathuria said: “There is plenty of untapped potential at Mercure Goldthorn.
"Not only is it extremely well-placed for Wolverhampton city centre, there is also a real opportunity to develop the community and social side of the business.
"We’re planning to open up a further 10 bedrooms within the hotel, invest in the leisure facilities, restaurant and function rooms and build on local relationships to enable us to achieve that goal."
The Goldthorn was bought from Aviva Investors for an undisclosed sum in the third Talash Hotels deal to be backed by Allied Irish Bank – AIB (GB).
It was among a package of six regional Mercure hotels that was put up for sale last year.
Situated just outside Wolverhampton city centre on the Penn Road, the Mercure Goldthorn Hotel currently has 74 bedrooms, leisure facilities including an indoor swimming pool and five function rooms for business and social events.
Mark Duggan, senior relationship manager at AIB (GB) in Birmingham, who led the latest deal with colleague Morgan Keating, said: “Sanjay and Ravi are ambitious entrepreneurs with a very clearly defined strategy of buying strategically-located properties with potential for development. Mercure Goldthorn matches that strategy perfectly.
“Recent AIB (GB) research shows that the hospitality sector is extremely buoyant at the moment, with the UK on course to attract 38 million visitors this year and regional hotels set to hit record occupancy levels in 2017.
"Talash Hotels Group is well-placed to capitalise on those upward trends and we’re very pleased to be supporting Sanjay and Ravi in their quest for growth.”
Sanjay Kathuria added: “We’re well on track to build a group of 20 hotels by 2020 and have a great ongoing relationship with AIB (GB). We look forward to working with them on the funding of future projects.”
