Last week, UK hotel company MWB Group Holdings fell into administration, and its boutique hotel chains Hotel du Vin and Malmaison have been put up for sale.
MWB Group Holdings has been struggling to meet interest installments on its £200 million debt pile, Business-Sale.com is reporting. According to the Guardian, shares in MWB Group Holdings were suspended earlier this month after it was unable to resolve a dispute with its subsidiary, the office space provider MWB Business Exchange, to which it owes £8 million. On Friday night, the company confirmed the formal appointment of Deloitte as administrators and Phil Bowers, one of its restructuring partners, insisted it was business as usual for both the Malmaison Group and MWB Business Exchange: "The administration appointment is to MWB Group Holdings only and does not impact on the ongoing operation of its trading subsidiaries. All trading subsidiaries of the group continue to run as normal."
MWB owns 26 hotels across its Malmaison and Hotel du Vin brands and was a stock market darling before the credit crunch hit. In a separate statement Malmaison and Hotel du Vin chief executive Gary Davis reiterated the collapse of its parent would not impact on day-to-day operations: "This development has no impact on Malmaison and Hotel du Vin trading, with both subsidiary businesses performing strongly with both sales growing and profits ahead by 14 percent over the last four month period on a like-for-like basis."