www.travelodge.com

Travelodge has just announced that it has launched a £100 million property fund as it sets itself up to acquire a lot of struggling assets in the hotel sector. Experts say that this is the perfect time for hotel chains like Travelodge to expand and buy up a lot of great hotels very cheap. Right now the idea is to buy up about 8 to 14 hotels that will be leased to Travelodge.

According to the announcement, Travelodge has chosen to team up with Meghraj, which is an Anglo Indian property fund manager. Meghraj is already an investor in about 15 other existing Travelodge hotels and aims to raise about £20 million of equity from its high-net-worth clients.

The managing director of development at Travelodge, Paul Harvey, said that despite the big credit crunch, he was very confident of raising the debt. He went on to say that since the summer of last year, they have been contracted by a substantial number of owners who have been looking to sell their hotels. Most of the time the only thing that stopped these negotiations from moving forward was the excessive valuations placed on the properties.

Harvey said that, over the past few months, it has become very clear that the expectations on the value of these hotels has moved in the outher direction. This means that some exciting opportunities are now presenting themselves to Travelodge, and they plan to jump on them.

Many say that Travelodge has the right idea. In this day and age, companies have to strike while the iron is hot, and Travelodge is planning to do just that.

For more information visit: www.travelodge.com