Principal Hotel Company
Principal Hotel Company is a British hotel and conference venue operator headquartered in Harrogate, England. History A predecessor company was founded in 1984. In 1992, when the chain had 18 properties, it went bankrupt during a recession. Two years later, in 1994, a former operations director of the chain, Tony Troy, led a management buyout for £68 million by Bridgepoint Capital. In 2001, Principal Hotels was sold to Nomura International Plc for £255 million, with Troy staying on as managing director. Nomura had just bought Le Méridien and rebranded the hotels to that chain. The company was reconstituted in 2004, when Le Méridien faced financial difficulties, and Troy took control back of the London, Manchester, York and Leeds properties. In 2006, the chain was sold by the Royal Bank of Scotland to the private equity firm Permira. In 2007, Principal Hotels sold their physical hotel properties to aAIM Group for £270 million and leased them back. That same year, the chain bought Hayley Conference Hotels, becoming the Principal Hayley Group. In 2009, it expanded through the purchase of two venues from the collapsed group The Real Hotel Company and opened two new venues in France and Spain. In 2010 the