‘We won’t sell to just anyone’
FERMAIN Valley Hotel has been put up for sale for £9m. by Vista Hotels Group.
However, group director Tim Coates said they were trying to work out the true value of the site, rather than focusing on selling.
The 45-bedroom hotel has been put up for sale with commercial estate agents Colliers International.
The 3.35-acre cliff-top site includes two restaurants and a tearoom, as well as a private cinema, indoor swimming pool and an alfresco terrace. There are also 54 staff bedrooms.
Boutique Hotel Ziggurat has also been listed on the same agency for £2.45m. The St Peter Port hotel, which used to be known as Sunnycroft, has 14 bedrooms and a 60-cover restaurant.
In response to a query by the Guernsey Press, Mr Coates said they had listed the hotels as part of a financial valuation exercise, to try and establish the true and fair value of the establishments from a financial statement disclosure perspective.
‘Due to the buoyant nature of the tourism market in the Bailiwick, we are keen to establish a market value of Fermain Valley Hotel as an entity and as part of our hotel portfolio,’ he said.
‘Fermain Valley Hotel, as an asset, is valued professionally every three years. However, this does not indicate the true value of the hotel, inclusive of intangible assets such as goodwill and focuses purely on physical assets contained within the property. The only way to truly test if our market value of the hotel and subsidiaries is reasonable, is to put the property to market and to see if there is any interest and allows us to establish a true net book value.
‘We believe that with awareness of Guernsey as a product being high, due to recent exposure from the likes of Potato Peel Society film etc, there is no better time to conduct this exercise.’
Colliers International hotels agency team director Paul Barrasford said: ‘This is a rare opportunity to acquire a hotel and associated properties in one of the island’s most picturesque locations.
‘The hotel’s product offering is fantastic and supports an impressive trading performance, whilst the array of ancillary properties offers significant development potential.
‘We expect to receive a substantial level of interest in this exciting opportunity.’
Mr Coates told the Guernsey Press that if a very good offer came in for the hotels they would consider it, but money was not the only deciding factor.
‘We would have to meet with the people who would want to buy it,’ he said.
‘We would not sell to just anyone. It’s not out of the question that we would sell. We would be open to offers, but we would have to consider offers on an individual basis and it would depend on the purchaser.’
Vista Hotels Group has owned Fermain Valley for about 15 years, with the site being refurbished about 12 years ago.
Ziggurat was bought more recently, in 2014, and opened under its current name in 2015.
