Hotels group puts its two biggest assets up for sale
The Signature Living Group announced today (May 3) that its landmark 30 James Street and Shankly hotels in Liverpool are up for sale.
The announcement to sell the hotels, which both include popular restaurants and conference facilities, follow Signature Living’s decision to expand into new locations and invest heavily in forthcoming hotel and residential developments.
These include the Dixie Dean Hotel (Liverpool), Alma De Cuba expansion (Liverpool), Cavern Walks Hotel (Liverpool), Kingsway House (Liverpool), RainHill Hall (St Helens), George Best Hotel (Belfast), Waring Hotel (Belfast), Liverpool Road (Manchester), Victoria Mill (Manchester), Shankly Hotel (Preston) and the final phase of the Coal Exchange development (Cardiff).
The Signature Living Group will also be launching its first cruise ship enterprise in Spain.
Signature Living opened the Titanic-themed 30 James Street hotel in 2014. The building is the former headquarters of the White Star Line, owner of the ill-fated Titanic.
The 63-bedroom hotel includes a spa, conference and events hall and is home to the ‘Carpathia’ restaurant. The group says its occupancy rates are among the highest in Liverpool and average at 98%. The property is valued at £17m.
Signature Living announced last week that it had bought out all original investors in the hotel.
In 2015 Signature Living opened the Shankly Hotel in collaboration with the surviving family of the late football manager, Bill Shankly.
The 125-bedroom Victoria Street hotel has won multiple awards including Hotel of the Year at the Liverpool City Region Tourism Awards in 2016.
The hotel includes ‘The Bastion’ restaurant and two major conference and event spaces.
Memorabilia from Bill Shankly’s glorious reign as manager of Liverpool Football Club is featured throughout the hotel, with it split between standard Shankly rooms, to a mix of flamboyance based on the Signature Living brand which offers an alternative to a normal hotel stay. The Shankly is valued at £40m.
The Shankly Hotel will also be featured in a forthcoming BBC TV series.
Signature Living chairman, Lawrence Kenwright, said: “Signature Living have developed and operated two of Liverpool’s most successful hotels with 30 James Street and Shankly.
“Their numerous awards and phenomenal occupancy rates are testament to that. Both hotels are now famous all over the world.
“The profits from the sale of the hotels will allow us to fuel our major expansion plans as we aim to add another 10 hotels to our portfolio, along with increasing our workforce from 1,400 employees to 3,000 in the next 18 months.”
He added: “There is already huge international interest in purchasing the hotels from us. We are carefully considering options and over the last couple of days have discussed our decision with employees and other stakeholders.
“This is an exciting new era for Signature Living. We’re positively looking forward to the future – a future that involves new flagship hotels not only in Liverpool but all over the UK.”
