Leonardo group adds Galway’s five-star Celtic Tiger-era ‘g’ Hotel & Spa to fast-growing European portfolio

The five-star g Hotel was originally designed by milliner-to-the-stars Philip Treacy and opened its opulent doors at the height of the boom back in 2005.

While the original backers ended up with debts in Nama, the business has carved out a strong niche and brand.

The hotel has 101 bedrooms and a spa and caters for events of up to 300 people and its 18,000sq ft ground floor extends across three lounges.

The hotel went through a €1m refurbishment in recent years.

The g Hotel will retain its brand and join the Leonardo Limited Edition collection of individually branded hotels, which includes The Dilly, London, The Grand, Brighton, Hotel Gotham, Manchester and The Midland, Manchester.

Leonardo, owned by Israeli billionaire David Fattal, will take over the running of the hotel from current operator Choice Hotel Group in the first of two deals it has lined up in Ireland this summer.

Leonardo was tight-lipped on the price. When the Galway hotel was last sold in a 2019 deal, investment firm Alanis Capital paid more than €40m, according to reports at the time.

Leonardo is also set to close a second “significant acquisition” of a well-known Dublin hotel in the next six weeks, according to Leonardo Hotels UK & Ireland CEO Jason Carruthers.

That second hotel is being earmarked by the group to become Dublin’s second NYX hotel.

After buying the Jurys chain in 2017, the groups has spent the past two years rebranding it.

“Ireland is a really strong market for us and for some time, we’ve been looking for additional opportunities there.

“So to be able to make this acquisition with the g Hotel – and another acquisition coming in a number of weeks – we are delighted about that,” he said.

“Galway is a great city and we already know it really well because we operated the Jurys Inn, now the Leonardo, there,” Carruthers told the Sunday Independent.

”The city has got a really good mixture of arts, culture, history and outdoors. It has a huge domestic following in Ireland and operates at really high occupancies.”

“It’s great that we can retain the name of the hotel because it has a really strong resonance in Ireland,” he said.

In January, Leonardo opened a 175-bedroom NYX hotel in Dublin’s Portobello following a €31m investment.

“The location [of NYX Portobello] is great,” said Carruthers. “It’s ramped up very, very quickly. We’ve been able to hit high 90s in terms of occupancy for the next three months.

“And the next step is we’ll be completing another deal in Ireland in the next six weeks.”

Carruthers said Leonardo had been looking for some time for further opportunities in key Irish cities.

Dave Murray, senior director of CBRE’s hotel team advised on the deal.

“The completion of the sale of the 5-star g Hotel is a great result for both our client, Alanis Capital and the purchaser Fattal Hotel Group and the G is a great fit for Fattal, who already have a very successful portfolio in Ireland,” he said.

“The sale is the first transaction of scale for a trading hotel in Galway for 7 years and demonstrates the strong appetite from hotel investors for opportunities in Galway city. Trading performance in Galway has improved considerably in the last 2 years and as a result numerous hotel groups are looking to enter the market,” he said.