Is has been reported that a Swiss company, with the backing of Israeli investors, has acquired the Grand Canal Square Hotel, which is located in the Dublin docklands and has been vacant for some time. The hotel and apartment complex was originally built by a Dublin developer and funded by Bank of Scotland, which has since closed its banking operations in Ireland. The development also has five retail units on the ground floor and 138 underground car parking spaces.

KPMG receivers have been working on the sale of the hotel complex, which is situated directly opposite the Grand Canal Theatre, for around 15 months. The receivers have still not confirmed the sale of the Dublin hotel and the 84 apartments in the complex, although it is believed that the price is somewhere around €30 million. If this figure is true then it falls well short of the debts on the development, which are thought to be in the region of €90 million.

The Swiss company in question is thought to have links with the W Hotels chain. This group specializes in luxury boutique hotels and currently has establishments in New York, Washington and Barcelona as well as hotels in London. As yet there is noting to indicate that the Dublin hotel will form part of this group of hotels.

Apart from the purchase price, it is expected that any new owner of the Grand Canal Square Hotel would have to spend somewhere in the region of a further €10 million on finishing fitting out the hotel including the restaurants, lounges, bars, kitchens, conference facilities etc. Of the 169 bedrooms, 21 of them are laid out as suites.

It is thought that, back in 2006, the original developer had a deal to sell the Dublin hotel to a Galway-based developer and hotelier for around €50 million. However, that deal could not be completed as, like many others, it too became a victim of the international banking crisis and the subsequent collapse in the price of property.

Last week a syndicate of financial institutions led by Ulster Bank is reported to have taken control of the hotels that make up the D4 Hotel Group located in the Ballsbridge area of Dublin. Over six years ago the lenders had provided finance to Carlow property developer Sean Dunne to acquire the former Berkeley Court hotel and Jurys hotel in the upmarket area of Dublin in a deal worth some €400 million. It is reported that at the height of the property boom Mr Dunne paid some €125 million for the five-star Berkeley Court and €275 for Jurys Hotel.

The lenders have reportedly appointed Dalata Hotel Group to take over the management of the hotels in Ballsbridge. Dalata is run by Pat McCann, the former chief executive of the Jurys Doyle hotel group and in an ironic twist it was Mr McCann who was involved in the negotiation of the sale of the hotels to Mr Dunne back in 2005.

The initial plan was to build an exclusive high-rise mixed development on the site of the hotels and the centrepiece of the projected €1.5 billion development was to be a 37-storey tower. However, the plan was rejected by An Bord Pleanála in January 2009 and the hotels were reopened under the D4 brand. In recent years the hotels have been re-positioned, operating as budget hotels with accommodation sometimes being offered from as little as €37 a night.

All this is now expected to change under the control of the Dalata Group. It is believed that the two Dublin hotels will be possibly rebranded as the Berkeley Court and the Ballsbridge Hotel and moved up into the four-star category. The price of a room in both establishments is also expected to rise accordingly. It is also believed that extra funds will be made available to renovate some of the rooms in the hotels. The ground-floor of the former Jurys hotel has already received a €4 million up-grade due to flood damage caused by the heavy rainfall that took place in Dublin in October last year.

Dalata is the biggest hotel group in Ireland and has some 4,000 bedrooms in 23 hotels. It runs 11 Maldron hotels and a further 12 hotels under management contracts for a variety of clients. These include the former Citywest Hotel in Saggart, Finnstown House in west Dublin, Breaffy House in Co Mayo, Whites in Wexford and the Clayton Hotel in Galway.

It has been reported that Yelena Baturina, wife of the former mayor of Moscow Yury Luzhkov and one of the richest women in Russia, is poised to buy the Morrison Hotel in Dublin from Nama, the Irish state assets agency. It is believed that Nama is in the advanced stages of completing the sale of the Morrison, which has been on the market since September last year, and is expected to fetch between €20 and €25 million. This price is around half the value placed on the hotel by Anglo Irish Bank back in the heady days of 2006.

The Moscow Times reports that Baturina is bidding for the Dublin hotel through a London-based asset management vehicle. It is believed that the deal has not yet been completed but is expected to be signed this week. Baturina’s bid is thought to be the highest of a shortlist of three or four formally made to Nama at the close of 2011. The Russian business woman is reported to be worth some $1.2 billion and has a wide range of interests including construction and manufacturing as well as farming and property.

The Morrison Hotel was part of businessman Hugh O’Regan’s pub and hotel portfolio until Martin Ferris was appointed as receiver to the business by Nama in 2010. The hotel was placed on the market by CBRE Hotels in September 2011 with formal bids being put in during November last year.

The Morrison is a four star hotel with 141 rooms located on Lower Ormond Quay in Dublin city centre. The hotel was built in 1999 and was designed by John Rocha. The hotel has an “East Meets West” theme and the stylish Dublin hotel is well-known for its great service, relaxed atmosphere and chic style. The hotel’s prime location in the heart of Dublin and its healthy profits were expected to appeal to international hotel investors. When the MTV awards were held in Dublin in 1999 The Morrison hosted the aftershow party headlined by Whitney Houston and since then it has become one of the trendiest hotels in Dublin.

The O’Callaghan hotel group recently announced the completion of a major investment in its Dublin hotels. Despite the difficult trading conditions that many hotels in Dublin are currently experiencing this is the second major refurbishment process the group has embarked on in the last three years. In 2009 the group invested some €3.3m on a 21 bedroom extension to its Stephen’s Green hotel in the Irish capital. The O’Callaghan Group is a privately owned Dublin based hotel and apartment group whose properties include the O’Callaghan Alexander, Davenport, Stephen’s Green and Mont Clare hotels.

Bryan O’Callaghan, Head of Group Operations at the company, said that: “This investment is a very significant chapter in the success story of O’Callaghan Hotels Group. In what has been a challenging trading environment in the hospitality sector we have continued to invest in our business to offer our customers a consistently high level of service and care.”

The investment included a refurbishment of the hotel bedrooms in the St Stephen’s Green hotel as well as a major upgrade to the IT installations and energy efficiency the group’s Dublin hotels. The result is improved Wi-Fi systems with increased bandwidth and coverage and high-end Bose speakers with monitors, projectors and microphones in all the conferencing facilities. Mr Callaghan continued, “We understand that business is rapidly changing and with that our customers expect a level of IT support they would expect in an office environment. This upgrade enables us to offer an excellent Wi-Fi system to all of our guests and a quality of AV equipment unrivalled in other Dublin Hotels.”

Some €450,000 of the investment went into installing efficient and environmentally friendly Combined Heat and Power units in the Davenport, Stephen’s Green and Mont Clare hotels. The hotel group worked closely with the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland to make sure that the units met international efficiency standards. Mr O’Callaghan concluded: “As a group we understand the importance of operating our business in an environmentally sound way.”

The two concerts that English band Take That will be playing in Dublin this weekend are proving to be  very lucrative for many of the city’s hotels that have been hard-pressed due to the downturn in trade from the on-going economic crisis. Take That are bringing their Progress tour to Dublin and will play two concerts on both Saturday and Sunday night. The concerts will take place in Croke Park and the crowd capacity over the two nights is expected to be somewhere around 165,000 in what may well prove to be the biggest music event of the year in Dublin.

The band has already arrived in Dublin and are reported to have booked the entire top floor of the Four Seasons hotel for themselves and their entourage. Ordinary fans, however, may not have the same luck if they have left it to the last minute to find a hotel room in the city. The Irish Times reported earlier in the week that the hotels.com website was showing that 235 hotels and guesthouses in Dublin had no availability left for Saturday night. Of those that did show availability it was reported that the Gresham had only a couple of rooms and the price was €390 for the night. The Fitzwilliam Hotel was reported as having just one room left at €380. A room at the Travelodge in Dublin Airport that was €69 on Friday night had increased to €220 for Saturday night.

The president of the Irish Hotels’ Federation, Paul Gallagher said Take That were a “phenomenal driver of demand” for hotel rooms in Dublin and he thought that all the hotels in the city would be near to capacity on Friday and Saturday night and almost full on Sunday night with concert-goers accounting for nearly 15,000 of the 48,000 beds available in Dublin. “This is about market force yield; it is not about a rip-off. Hotel rates are fluid every day of the year upward and downward. For 360 days of the year hotels are offering heavily discounted rates with some rates below a profitable offering.”