No room at Jurys Doyle for talks

THE biggest private shareholding group in Ireland's largest hotel chain, Jurys Doyle, have given the cold shoulder to an approach from the new owners of the Gresham group of hotels. The Doyle and Beatty families, who own a combined stake of more than 30% in Jurys Doyle, said today they are not connected with, and have given no support to, the approach this week from Precinct, an acquisitions vehicle run by a pair of Irish businessmen and a solicitor.

Jurys Doyle, which has a market value of about £600m, has a 34-strong estate of four-star hotels and inns, 18 in the UK, 13 in Ireland and three in the US.

It emerged on Monday that Precinct, run by solicitor David Coleman, hotelier JJ Murphy and developer Bryan Cullen, had made an approach to the hotel group's board. Precinct took over the Gresham group last year.

Walter Beatty, former chairman of Jurys Doyle, still has a 7.24% shareholding. Most of the Doyle family stake is held in the names of Bernadette Gallagher, with 8.3%, Eileen Monaghan, with 7.6%, and the wife of board director Thomas Roche, who owns 6.8%.

Jurys is looking to expand its hotels business with a further eight Jurys Inns to open in 2007.

The shares today fell three cents to e14.74.