Ireland’s largest hotel group Dalata Hotels today confirmed plans to raise €160 million for further acquisitions through a share placing.
The company said there was a strong pipeline of Irish hotels to acquire.
The directors believe that 2015 will see the largest volume of hotel transactions since the start of the country’s economic recovery.
Dalata acquired a series of hotels last year together with the nine-strong Moran Bewley’s Hotel Group.
“The sector outlook in Ireland remains very positive and the quicker than expected integration of the Moran Bewley’s Hotel Group reinforces the unique market opportunity for Dalata as the largest hotel group in Ireland by both hotel and room numbers,” the group said.
“The directors believe that there remain a number of potential Irish hotel acquisition opportunities that are likely to come to the market in the near term.”
Dalata raised €265 million in March 2014, and listed on AIM and ESM markets in the UK and Ireland respectively.
Chief executive, Pat McCann, said: “In addition to a strong set of results, we also announce our intention to raise €160 million in additional equity to fund further acquisitions.
“This underlines our belief that there will continue to be opportunities to acquire well located assets at attractive valuations together with attractive investment opportunities to expand facilities at the hotels that we have already acquired.
“We also see an opportunity to develop new hotels in Dublin where there has been very limited supply of new hotels in the last eight years.”
He added: “It has been a very exciting and rewarding last 18 months for Dalata. We are now focused on exploiting the very strong operating platform that we have created by acquiring further properties and maximising the returns from the hotels that we have acquired over the last 12 months.”