Talbot Hotels has acquired the four-star Clonmel Park Hotel in an off-market transaction for a price understood to be in the region of €7. 5 million. The sale marks the latest hotel divestment by Tetrarch Capital.
The Co Tipperary hotel, which was built in 2006, has 99 bedrooms, extensive conference and banqueting facilities, a leisure centre, restaurant and bar. The three-storey property extends to about 6,655 sq m/ 71,634 sq ft, and has benefited from significant refurbishment. It is strategically located on the N24 linking Limerick and Waterford, and close to the M8 Dublin to Cork road. It employs 120 staff.
Investment group Tetrarch Capital bought the hotel in 2015. The deal with Talbot Hotels, brokered by CBRE, follows Tetrarch’s sale of the Killashee Hotel in Co. Kildare to Barry English, founder of Irish engineering group Winthrop, for about €25 million last month.
Tetrarch still has a number of hotels in its portfolio – including Mount Juliet in Thomastown, Co Kilkenny, the Dawson Hotel in Dublin and Citywest in Saggart, Co Dublin – as well as developments such as the Millennium Park Lands, an industrial estate near Naas, Co Kildare.
The acquisition brings the Irish-owned Talbot Hotel Group into Tipperary for the first time. The group already owns six hotels across Wexford, Carlow, Cork and Dublin, including the well known Talbot Hotel in Stillorgan, Dublin; the Talbot Hotel Wexford; and the Oriel House Hotel in Ballincollig, Co Cork.
The Clonmel Park will be renamed as the Talbot Hotel Clonmel.
Supermarkets
The group, which is owned by the Pettitt family, also operates several supermarkets in Wexford, Gorey, Enniscorthy, Arklow and Athy.
“This is a major acquisition for us as a group,” Cormac Pettitt, managing director of the Pettitt Group, said. “We have grown our Talbot Collection brand from our original property, the Talbot Hotel Wexford,” he said.
Recently filed accounts for Torski, the group holding company, show the Pettitt group employs just over 1,000 staff. It generated a turnover of €128 million in 2019, €91.6 million of which came from its retail businesses, while making a pretax profit of €5.5 million.
The deal comes amid a challenging trading environment in the tourism and hospitality sectors due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. Nonetheless John Hughes, director with CBRE Hotels, said the sale of the Clonmel Park confirms "a keen interest" in provincial hotel acquisitions.
