RBS set to take control of Jarvis Hotels in bid to recover £130m - Irish Times

ROYAL BANK of Scotland is set to seize control of Jarvis Hotels, the troubled hotel operator, as the lender looks to claw back £130 million (€151 million) of debt.

The bank, which has teamed up with private equity group PatronCapital, is preparing to push Jarvis through a pre-pack administration that would allow it to acquire 20 hotels the group owns under freehold.

The deal comes 18 months after Jarvis, which operates under the Ramada franchise, defaulted on its loan repayments. It could be signed as early as next week, according to people involved in the talks. RBS is the lead bank to a club of lenders, including HSBC and Bank of Ireland, behind Jarvis's debts.

Since defaulting, Jarvis has been kept in RBS's business recovery unit and it has been widely rumoured that the bank, possibly in conjunction with a private equity partner, would inject fresh liquidity into the company.

However, one person close to the talks said RBS had looked at every option to restructure the business and that taking over the hotels was the only way forward. It is expected that the hotels will be put into the bank's West Register vehicle, which manages its distressed property assets. It is understood that Jarvis's board and top executives would be replaced.

The four-star hotel operator was taken private seven years ago in a £229 million management buyout led by by its chairman, John Jarvis.

The buyout was backed by Lioncourt Capital, the Dublin private equity firm founded by financiers David Andrews and Michael Tunney. Irish investors who bought into the deal included former AIB chairman Dan O'Connor, Simon Pratt of Avoca, and Unicare pharmacy owner Fergus Hoban.

Jarvis posted pretax losses of £15 million in the year to the end of March 2010, its last available set of accounts. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2011