Irish hotel operator Pillo Hotels has been appointed to manage the former Marriott hotel in Ashbourne, Co Meath. It will manage the four-star property on behalf of KPMG, which was appointed as receiver of the hotel by the National Asset Management Agency in March 2011, when it moved on assets related to developer Paddy Kelly.
Conal O’Neill, Pillo’s director of operations, said it planned to rebrand the hotel as the Pillo Hotel Ashbourne. The property had a “lot of potential”.
Pillo, run by former Jurys Doyle executives, is backed by Dublin-based private equity group Ion Equity, whose other investments include Topaz Energy, SouthWestern, Ocean Media and USIT.
In November 2010, Pillo was appointed to manage the Marriott Courtyard in Galway. It has since been rebranded Pillo Hotel Galway and is said to be trading “very strongly”.
Pillo said it was exploring a number of opportunities to take over the management of other hotels in Ireland and Britain.
Latest accounts for Pillo show it recorded a loss of €144,861 in 2010, and had accumulated losses of €553,526.
