FTSE 100 firm, InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) who owns the Holiday Inn has bought Ruby Hotels for an initial £87.6 million.
Ruby Hotels was founded in 2013 and has 20 hotels with three in the UK and London.
IHG said their operating profit rose by 7% to £1.83 billion in the year and the sales metric, world wide revenue per available room increased by 3% and in the final quarter of the year this rose to 4.6%.
IHG chief executive Elie Maalouf said: “This acquisition demonstrates our focus on building our presence in large, attractive industry segments and using our experience of integrating and growing brands and hotel portfolios.
“The urban micro space is a franchise-friendly model with attractive owner economics and we see excellent opportunities to not only expand Ruby’s strong European base but also rapidly take this exciting brand to the Americas and across Asia, as we have successfully done with previous brand acquisitions.”
