THE company behind Malmaison and Hotel du Vin hotels is to appoint administrators after failing to secure a refinancing of the business it said yesterday.
MWB Group said its 26 hotels across the two brands would continue to trade normally and were not being placed into administration.
The firm has one Malmaison hotel in Belfast.
Shares in the group were suspended on October 31 and investors warned their stakes could be wiped out after its part-owned subsidiary, MWB Business Exchange, withdrew repayments on a £4.8 million loan. The temporary office space business claimed it was owed £8m by MWB Group.
Deloitte, which was reportedly drafted in to help the troubled business earlier this week, will be appointed as administrators with immediate effect.
MWB had been developing its hotel business, named after Napoleon’s Chateau de Malmaison, with the intention of selling off the business and returning the proceeds to shareholders.
The Malmaison chain has boutique hotels in city centres across the country. Hotel du Vin, which was formed in 1994, has smaller hotels based mainly in cathedral or university towns.