Cork’s iNua hotels group in buy-out

The management buy-out of Cork-based iNua Hospitality has been completed.

It is a collection of eight Irish-owned and managed hotels, including the Radisson Blu hotels in Cork, Limerick, Athlone, and Sligo, and Muckross Park Hotel in Killarney.

With 900 hotel rooms and more than 1,200 employees, it is one of Ireland’s largest regional hotel groups.

Noel Creedon is stepping back as chief executive and taking up a role as a non-executive director on iNua’s board, with ownership transferred to executive directors Sean O’Driscoll and Paul Fitzgerald.

Mr Fitzgerald said the management buy-out has been carefully designed to ensure continuity in the mandate from investors under existing management in iNua.

“Sean and I look forward to working with the dynamic team that has been assembled and growing iNua’s footprint in hospitality into this new decade,” he said.

Mr Creedon said he thoroughly enjoyed developing iNua over the past eight years. “We have built a highly effective team that is committed to always delivering for our customers. I now look forward to supporting the executive team as part of the board of iNua Hospitality plc.”

Making the announcement, iNua said it expects to report €8.9m in earnings, before interest and tax, for 2019, an increase of 4% on a like-for-like basis.

“We continue to drive sustainable growth and are on track to deliver our 2023 strategic targets,” said Mr Fitzgerald.

The outlook for 2020 is positive and iNua expects to deliver 6% to 8% growth in normalised Ebitda.