The deal includes six three and four star hotels in Oxford, the Cotswolds, Thames Valley and Bristol, with a total of 863 rooms. One of the hotels, the Oxford Thames, recently underwent a £2m expansion and upgrade.
Kevin Colket, senior vice president at Starwood Capital Group, said: “Four Pillars offers high-quality, full-service, four-star hotels in superb locations. We look forward to building on the company's operational excellence and its longstanding client focus."
UK expansion
Formed in 1991, Starwood Capital Group currently has $32 billion of assets under management and operates offices in Greenwich, Atlanta, San Francisco, Washington, DC, Los Angeles, Chicago and Miami, and affiliated offices in London, Luxembourg, Paris, Frankfurt and Sao Paulo.
Starwood has been slowly increasing its European hotel portfolio and bought hotel, conference and training venue operator Principal Hayley, whose portfolio includes the Grand Central hotel in Glasgow, last February. It also owns the Louvre Hotels Group, although it sold off 40 of the groups French hotels in November last year in a move to 'reduce debt and finance more international expansion'.
Four Pillars portfolio
Founded in 1974, Four Pillars prides itself on providing hotel breaks with ‘no added extras’. All of its hotels have business facilities and their own restaurants, while most also have spa and leisure facilities.
Its six hotels are:
- Cotswold Water Park: A modern, 328-room hotel located in the heart of the Cotswolds.
- Tortworth Court: A 190-room, Grade II-listed Victorian mansion hotel surrounded by 30 acres of parkland.
- Oxford Spires: A 174-room hotel located within a half-mile of Oxford's city center.
- Oxford Thames: A newly expanded, 84-room hotel located in the countryside just three miles from Oxford.
- Oxford Witney: A contemporary, 87-room hotel set near the historic market town of Witney.
- Oxford Abingdon: A 66-room hotel managed by Four Pillars located in the historic town of Abingdon-on-Thames.