Leonardo Hotels UK & Ireland has acquired The Bristol Hotel on Prince Street from Irish group The Doyle Collection and will rebrand it as the Leonardo Royal Hotel Bristol. A phased £11.5 million refurbishment follows, upgrading guest rooms and public spaces and giving the Fattal-owned group a second hotel in the city.

Leonardo Hotels UK & Ireland is the regional arm of Israeli-headquartered Fattal Hotel Group, and operates 63 centrally located hotels with more than 13,000 rooms. Fattal runs more than 330 hotels across 22 countries, and its Irish operating company reported revenue of €60.5 million and a pre-tax profit of €2.29 million in its latest accounts.

The Doyle Collection is an Irish family-owned group with seven hotels across the UK, Ireland and the United States, including The Westbury in Dublin, The Bloomsbury in London and The River Lee in Cork. It is understood to have sold the four-star Bristol property to focus on five-star hotels.

The Bristol Hotel has 187 rooms and was built between 1964 and 1966, originally trading as Jurys Hotel. Its facilities include The Grille restaurant and Rick’s Bar, which will become Leo’s restaurant and bar, plus a fitness centre and nine meeting and function suites for up to 400 delegates.

The deal takes the Leonardo Royal brand to 10 UK properties, alongside sites in London, Southampton, Glasgow, Birmingham, Oxford, Brighton and Edinburgh. The group already runs the 197-bedroom Leonardo Hotel Bristol City, which opened in 2021 within the Glassfields development, and recently bought three hotels in Munich, Hanover and Braunschweig adding 735 rooms in Germany.

The structural driver is Fattal’s institutional partnership funding model, in which equity from outside investors pays for acquisitions that are then upgraded and rebranded under the Leonardo Royal name.

“This acquisition reflects our continued commitment to investing in high-quality hotels in key destinations and delivering exceptional experiences for both business and leisure guests,” said Jason Carruthers, managing director of Leonardo Hotels UK & Ireland.

Guy Vardi and Yaniv Amzaleg of Fattal Hotel Group said the deal “kicks off our third partnership with institutional investors in the last four years”, in which the group has already secured more than €850 million of equity for acquisitions.

For the sector, the sale shows an Irish family group trimming a four-star asset while an institutionally funded operator buys it for refurbishment and rebranding.

Source: The Business Desk / The Caterer / RTÉ / Boutique Hotelier / Bristol247