Winthrop chief acquires Killashee Hotel for €25m

Barry English, founder of Irish engineering group Winthrop, is understood to be closing on the acquisition of the popular four-star Kildare hotel Killashee from Tetrarch Capital for a sum of about €25 million.

The entrepreneur is understood to have seen off bids from a number of other parties, including Cliste Hospitality, the hospitality group led by Paul Fitzgerald and Sean O'Driscoll, which owns eight hotels around Ireland. The deal is expected to close over the coming weeks.

Mr English founded engineering group Winthrop back in 1995. The group, which reported turnover of €283 million in the year to April 2020 and employs about 700 people, is also reported to be in the middle of a sales process, with a valuation of about €250 million put on the company.

The group has grown substantially in recent years, having reported turnover of just €37 million back in 2013. It has capitalised on growth in the data centre sector.

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Hotels

Killashee owner Tetrarch Capital had previously been reported as considering a sale of the well-known 140-bedroom four-star property close to Naas, Co Kildare. It bought the hotel back in 2014 for a reported €13 million from its then owner, Craigfort Taverns, which was under court protection from creditors at the time.

Tetrarch has a number of other hotels in its portfolio, including Mount Juliet in Thomastown, Co Kilkenny, the Dawson Hotel, Dublin and Citywest in Saggart, Co Dublin, as well as developments such as the Millennium Park Lands, an industrial estate near Naas, Co. Kildare.

Back in 2019 it sold the Marker Hotel in Dublin's docklands to German investor Deka for a reported €130 million.

Despite the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the tourism and hospitality sectors, there have been a number of high profile hotel sales this year, including Dublin's Morrison Hotel to London-based private equity firm Zetland Capital, for a sum reportedly in excess of €65 million, back in May. More recently, Slieve Donard, a five-star hotel in Co Down, was acquired by US-based AJ Capital Partners, in a deal valued at about £40 million (€47 million).