Zeus leads Barbados hotels firm to AIM

AIM specialist Zeus Capital is bringing a Caribbean lesiure business to the market.

Elegant Hotels Group, which owns and operates five high-end properties in Barbados, is raising £64m in a shares placing and will be valued at around £88m when shares begin to trade later this month.

Manchester-based Zeus is adviser and sole broker to Elegant, which is currently owned by a private equity firm, Vision Capital, which is looking to partially exit.

Elegant’s portfolio comprises freehold beachfront hotels Colony Club, Tamarind, The House, Crystal Cove and Turtle Beach and a beachfront restaurant called Daphne’s. It comprises 483 rooms, which represents almost 25% of Barbados’ quality leisure tourist room stock.

The company plans to use part of the proceeds of the listing to expand both in Barbados and further into the Caribbean.

Dan Bate, corporate finance director at Zeus said: “We are delighted to have supported Elegant Hotels Group’s highly experienced management team on its upcoming AIM float and £64m fundraising at a time when we are experiencing an exceptionally interesting time in the market.

“The portfolio of five luxury hotels on Barbados’s west and south coasts and a high quality beachfront restaurant captured our imagination and it is extremely pleasing that the well managed, profitable Elegant Hotels Group with its well positioned expansion strategy and a 7% dividend yield was able to appeal to some of the highest quality institutional investors in the City.”