Irish Hotel Group Tifco to Change Hands for up to €600m
Date: September 2018
Location: Across Ireland
Name: Tifco, 18 hotels, and sites for 2 new hotels in Dublin, across IHG Crowne Plaza, Hilton and Travelodge brands.
No. of Keys: 1,800, the hotels it manages for others involve just under 800 rooms.
Seller: Goldman Sachs-backed Tifco, Ireland’s 2nd largest hotel chain. Goldman Sachs took its controlling stake in Tifco in 2014 when it bought the company’s debt from the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation.
The company’s original founders – businessmen Aidan Crowe and DID Electrical founder Gerry Houlihan – retain minority holdings.
Buyer: US private equity firm Apollo Global Management. The hotels include the Crowne Plaza hotels at Dublin Airport, Dublin-Blanchardstown, and Dundalk, the Hilton Hotel in Dublin Kilmainham, Holiday Inn Express Dublin Airport, as well as non-branded hotels.
Leon Black, Apollo Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and Founder, and Josh Harris and Marc Rowan, Senior Managing Directors and Co-Founders, describe Apollo’s unusual beginning in 1990, and its evolution into an integrated, global leader in alternative investment management.
Across three decades and numerous economic cycles, the firm’s contrarian culture has made it an innovator in identifying different paths to value.
They have substantial interests in some hefty companies such as Diamond Resorts, Gala Coral Group, Caesars Entertainment, Norwegian Cruise Line, AMC to mention but a few.
The company also manages a number of other high-profile hotels, including Clontarf Castle in Dublin, the Heritage Resort at Killenard, Co Laois, and the Metropole in Cork.
Mr Houlihan’s family owns Clontarf Castle.
Documents submitted to The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission show Apollo has set up a designated company, Trident Bidco DAC, to take control of the Tifco group of companies, which have been amalgamated for the purpose of the deal.
A spokesman for Tifco declined to comment.
Price: The value of the portfolio has not yet been disclosed but is understood to be €500 million-€600 million.
Price per Key: At €550m – €305,556 (including managed hotels)
THPT Comment: The fallout from Nama and the Irish banking crisis must truly be at the end now…Good move for Apollo Global Management.
First Seen: The Irish Times