81-Key Mere Knutsford Sold to UAE-Based Select Group
Main Photo: The Mere Hotel, renowned in the Cheshire area
Date: July 2022
Name: The Mere Golf Resort & Spa
Location: Knutsford, Cheshire, England, UK
Number of Keys: 81
Seller: The Boler family, acquired the hotel by father Stephen in 1984, and had been run by son Mark since 1997. They sold the hotel in 2018 to Ejarat Holdings, a Gulf based investor, for a reported £36m
Buyer: Dubai based Select Group, known initially property development and more recently hotels
The Mere Golf Resort & Spa in Knutsford has been acquired by Select Group, a UAE-based property developer.
The hotel is the latest addition to Select Group’s existing portfolio of hotels, with key parts of Cheshire, specifically Knutsford, identified as a desired location for the Group.
The Mere Golf Resort & Spa comprises 81 guest bedrooms, an event capacity of up to 550 people, a Championship golf course and golf services, and an award-winning Spa & Health Club.
In purchasing the resort, Select Group has detailed plans to elevate the hotel’s positioning to a heightened luxury level with plans to refurbish the interior and exterior. The vision is to upgrade the rooms, the public spaces and facilities, add new rooms and expand the public areas, continuing to attract international and domestic corporate and leisure travellers.
Rahail Aslam, Founder and CEO of Select Group, commented: “We truly believe that Mere Golf Resort & Spa has a high potential to become the best resort of its class in the North-West of England, and we are looking forward to achieving this goal by working closely together with the hotel team.”
Gary Johnson, General Manager at The Mere Golf Resort & Spa, added: “The team and I are excited about this acquisition as it will secure our path to becoming the best resort in the region.”
There Mere Knutsford was sold for an undisclosed amount.
Based in Dubai, Select Group is a real estate development and investment firm specialising in a selection of verticals including real estate development, investments, hospitality, and retail.
With hospitality an integral part of Select’s diversification and growth strategy, both locally and internationally. In Dubai, they have the InterContinental Dubai Marina Hotel, and here in the UK they acquired the Radisson Blu Hotel in Birmingham, in addtion to Innside by Melia, Liverpool, Niu Air Framkfurt and Ibis Budget in Sheffield.
Working with brands that reflect our continuous quest for quality is central to our philosophy, evident in signing Jumeirah Group as the operators for Jumeirah Living Marina Gate, and our relationships with a wide spectrum of other leading global hospitality names.
As the industry continues to evolve, we have a proven track record for achieving significant success and overcoming market challenges to deliver returns. We remain focused on this sector and are in the process of assessing several European assets for acquisition.
Select Group has delivered over 7,000 homes, more than 20 million sq ft, currently with another 5,000 homes under construction, a combined Gross Development Value of over AED 20 billion.
Price: Undisclosed
THPT Comment: Cheshire is well-known for it’s abundance of Manchester (City & United) football players, and this hotel and golf resort has it’s fair share of those as clients, not least as Stephen Boler, the founder of the hotel, was a director and shareholder of Man United back in the day. Select have a great track record in the expansion into hotels, both in Europe and their home, Dubai
First Seen: Boutique Hotelier
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