Pan-European institutional investor Patron Capital has teamed up with West Register, part of Royal Bank of Scotland's global restructuring group, to acquire a UK hotel portfolio out of administration in a EUR 130 mln deal.

Jupiter Hotels, the 50-50 joint venture created by the buyers, is injecting £40 mln (EUR 46 mln) to acquire the 24 Jarvis hotels. In addition, RBS, HSBC and Bank of Ireland are providing £71 mln of debt financing. The three banks were the original lenders to Jarvis.

The 21 freehold and three leasehold hotels provide a total of 2,665 rooms.

Andrew Gill, formerly of Intercontinental Hotels Group, will become interim CEO of Jupiter Hotels. With the exception of Jarvis's board of directors, all of the existing employees of Jarvis's head office and the 24 hotels will transfer to Jupiter.

The hotels will be rebranded Mercure, under a franchise agreement with hotel group Accor, the market leader in Europe. This is the biggest franchise deal for Accor this year.