Holiday Inn owner InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) has snapped up another hotel brand as it reported stronger profits. The FTSE 100 firm said it has acquired Ruby Hotels for an initial 110.5 million euros (£87.6 million). The business was founded in 2013 and currently has 20 hotels, including three in the UK – in London. IHG said the business has a pipeline for 10 further planned hotels and it intends to grow the brand “substantially further”, with plans to expand into the US.
It will become the group’s 20th brand after it has expanded through a series of takeover deals. IHG chief executive Elie Maalouf said: “This acquisition demonstrates our focus on building our presence in large, attractive industry segments and using our experience of integrating and growing brands and hotel portfolios. “The urban micro space is a franchise-friendly model with attractive owner economics and we see excellent opportunities to not only expand Ruby’s strong European base but also rapidly take this exciting brand to the Americas and across Asia, as we have successfully done with previous brand acquisitions.”.
It came as IHG revealed that operating profits grew by 10% to 1.12 billion US dollars (£890 million) in 2024, as it benefited from more hotel openings. IHG, which has 355 UK hotels, reported that revenues increased by 7% to 2.31 billion dollars (£1.83 billion) for the year. Meanwhile, the firm’s key sales metric, global revenue per available room, rose by 3%, with this accelerating to 4.6% in the final quarter of the year.
