Ex-S&N boss sets sights on £600m Premier Lodge

Bob Ivell, the former boss of Scottish & Newcastle Retail (S&N), is lining up a bid for budget hotel chain Premier Lodge.

He is thought to be in talks with venture capitalists to raise the £600m necessary to win the auction. The bid will also involve several members of the old S&N management team.

Scottish & Newcastle sold the chain to Spirit Group last year along with 2,400 pubs in a £2.51bn deal.

Mr Ivell told The Publican he couldn't comment on anything specific. "We are looking at every opportunity," he said.

Spirit is expected to issue the information memorandum - a detailed document containing trading information on a site-by-site basis - to potential buyers this week.

Other interested parties will be Travel Inn owner Whitbread, Travelodge owner Permira and French hotel and gaming giant Accor.

Analysts also expect a clutch of venture capitalists such as Candover and Cinven to take a close look.

Mr Ivell left Spirit in January after a short handover period to its management team, led by Karen Jones. Mr Ivell is also a contender for the vacant Whitbread pubs job. It is thought that Spirit will make more disposals in addition to Premier Lodge. It is expected to sell about 300 pubs from its bottom end to a leased operator such as Punch or Enterprise and there remains a big question mark over some of its branded pub chains.

The news came as Mr Ivell won two awards at the sixth annual Retailers' Retailer of the Year Awards. He was named as Best Individual - the Retailers' Retailer, and was described as "one of the industry's real big hitters, a brand builder, a team builder, a business builder".

Mr Ivell was lauded for the £2.5bn auction of S&N Retail to Spirit Amber, for which he also picked up the award for Deal of the Year, to be shared with Karen Jones and Tony Campbell at Spirit.

Best Company was awarded to Living Ventures. The awards were organised by Martin Information.