A THAI-based company has expanded its Scottish footprint with the seven-figure acquisition of a hotel in Elgin.
The 52-bedroom Eight Acres Hotel was sold by Crerar Hotel Group to Thailand-based Lake Merritt Group from a guide price of £3.5 million in a deal brokered by Colliers International.
Lake Merritt Group also owns the Braid Hills Hotel in Edinburgh as well as several properties in England.
Hotel management company, 7Hospitality, will take the reins in managing the business.
Prab Thakral, adviser to Lake Merritt Group, said: “The Eight Acres Hotel is Lake Merritt Group’s second hotel in Scotland and fourth in the UK and we are aggressively and diligently expanding our hotel portfolio, as we have a long-term positive view in the UK’s hospitality industry as a whole.”
The sale of Eight Acres Hotel is said to be indicative of “a wider trend of increased demand for quality provincial hotel opportunities from a diverse range of potential buyers,” according to Colliers. It also represents the latest stage in Crerar’s “right-sizing” strategy, which has seen the group dispose of several sites in the past year. Chief executive Paddy Crerar said the sale of the Eight Acres “has been the starting gun for a £3m reinvestment plan in our 85-bedroom Isle of Mull hotel, where work is now underway”.
