De Vere to sell Venues business

DE Vere, the hotel and leisure group, has put its De Vere Venues business – which operates the De Whites Hotel in Bolton and a number of other regional assets – up for sale.

The company said it had mandated investment bank Lazard to conduct a sale process after it received a number of unsolicited approaches for the division, which focuses on corporate conferences and training.

Among its other North West venues are The Studio in The Hive in Manchester city centre, the 52-bed Cheadle House near Manchester Airport and Wychwood Park near Crewe, Cheshire.

The Venues business has 30 sites and 3,000 bedrooms accommodating around 700,000 conference meeting delegates a year.

The group said De Vere Venues gets around  80% of revenues from business to business customers, of which 84% is from repeat business.  De Vere Venues is expected to deliver £28m in ebitda this year. Its property portfolio was recently valued at more than £280m.

In a statement De Vere said: “The group is not under any pressure to undertake a disposal and will only conclude a transaction which is in the best interests of all stakeholders.”