Stewart Hindley & Partners play key role in acquisition of historic Scottish hotel

The Argyll Hotel opened in 1755 and is located at the entrance to Inveraray Castle in the historic Scottish town of Inveraray. The town’s location on the shores of Loch Fyne means it is a popular destination for international and domestic tourists.

Our client, The Byrne family, approached us for assistance in raising bank finance for the acquisition of the Argyll Hotel. The family intended to expand their business through this acquisition, adding the hotel to their existing Best Western-branded hotel in nearby Crianlarich, just north of Loch Lomond.

http://www.inveraray-inn.co.uk/

http://www.crianlarich-hotel.co.uk/

The lead director of the family’s hotel company, Mr Geaspar Byrne, is based in the Far East, necessitating many early morning Skype calls for the team. These calls were instrumental in ensuring a good flow of communication between our client, us and the lender. This is always an important factor when pulling together a high quality business plan. For Stewart Hindley & Partners the relationship with our clients is the most important thing and the satisfaction of being instrumental in helping a client achieve their goals makes all the effort worthwhile.

One of the challenges for raising finance was to convince the lender that the synergy between the hotels would be a profitable one and that with good in-house management both hotels could benefit from bulk purchasing and centralisation of operating systems. It was also important to show that our client was not only experienced within the hospitality sector but that the plans going forward were affordable, doable and above all manageable. Happily, all this was successfully achieved and we secured competitive financing terms on behalf of our client not only for the Argyll Hotel acquisition but also for a complete refinancing of the Crianlarich Hotel.

Upon completion of the transaction, the family conducted a re-branding exercise and the new hotel is now trading under its original name of The Inveraray Inn.

Geaspar Byrne said: “We as a family are thrilled to be the new owners of The Inveraray Inn. This historic hotel is one of the most iconic hotels in the West of Scotland and compliments our other asset perfectly. We could not be happier with the services provided by Stewart Hindley & Partners and would not hesitate to recommend them to others.”

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