Travelodge to walk away from 49 hotels
Travelodge, which owns more than 500 hotels across the UK, Ireland and Spain and employs more than 6,000 staff, said the deals will secure its long-term future and free it of much of its crippling debt burden.
It wants the landlords of 49 hotels to cut rents by 45% over the next six months while it seeks new operators and is asking for a 25% rent cut for a further 109 sites it wants to keep.
Travelodge said there were no current plans to close hotels or make job losses.
As part of a wider financial restructuring, it has agreed that £235m of bank debt will be written off and £71m will be repaid, bringing its debt down to £329m, while a further £476m of loan notes will also be scrapped.
The rescue plan effectively sees Travelodge seized by its three main lenders — Goldman Sachs and two American hedge funds Avenue Capital and GoldenTree Asset Management.
