New York and new hotels for UCL
Urban Country and Leisure (UCL), the Birmingham-based pub and restaurant management operator, is eyeing five new hotels for potential refurbishment following the purchase of Warwick’s The Globe hotel. The company’s founder, Ross Sanders, told Insider the company would like to expand overseas and has been “looking over in New York”. Sanders revealed the company'splans to branch out with a £15m expansion plan.
UCL, which currently operates 14 pubs and restaurants across the country, has invested £1.5m in The Globe. Due to open later this year as the Lazy Cow, the company’s move into the hotel market marks the start of huge expansion.
Sanders said: “We want to open 40 more pubs and restaurants in the next three years and we’re currently in the closing stages of a deal with a brewer."
He added: “We have been looking over in New York, but at the moment, we’re very much focused on the UK market. Over the next 12 months, the business is all about value for money and cashflow – in a year, we’ll review our position.”
Each of the 16 bedrooms in The Lazy Cow will be designed and themed by designers Tibbatts Kirk Abel. Each room will also include high-tech gadgets such as Apple iPads, 32-inch flatscreen plasma HD TVs, Wi-Fi and iPods.
Sanders said: “We’ve seen an opportunity where we can build our pub and restaurant into the bottom of a hotel. We like to think of them as pubs with rooms.
"It’s a big opportunity for our company as there’s a lot of property going on the market with five, ten or 20 bedrooms at a reasonable price.”
Sanders said that from the feedback the company has received so far, the hotel addition to the business is “a model which is transferable across the country”.
“We are currently looking at five hotels in the Midlands and further south, which have between ten and 16 bedrooms," he said. “The Midlands will always be the base of the business, and now we’re able to roll it out across the country.”
In terms of funding the expansion project, Sanders says the company has been “lucky”.
“We don’t rely on bank loans and we’re not in any debt," he said. “We have a team of private investors behind the business. Banks have run for the hills when it comes to investing in the leisure industry. If you have a good team of investors behind you, it’s a great time to invest.”
