De Vere (hotel operator)

De Vere

Company type	Private
Industry	Hotels
Founded	1762
Headquarters	Harrogate, UK
Key people	James Burrell (Group CEO)
Website	https://www.devere.co.uk

De Vere is a hotels and leisure business, which until the 1990s was a brewing company known as Greenall's. It used to be listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.

Greenall's Brewery was founded by Thomas Greenall in 1762. Initially based in St Helens, the company established a second brewery at Wilderspool, south of Warrington in 1787.^[1][2]

It bought the Groves & Whitnall Brewery in Salford in 1961,^[3] Shipstone's Brewery in Nottingham in 1978^[4] and Davenport's Brewery in Birmingham in 1986.^[5] For much of the 20th century, the company traded as Greenall Whitley & Co Limited.^[5] The St Helens brewery was demolished in the 1970s to make way for a new shopping centre. The Warrington brewery on the edge of Stockton Heath was bought by Bruntwood, renamed Wilderspool Business Park and is now let to office occupiers.^[6]

The company ceased brewing in 1991 to concentrate on running pubs and hotels.^[7]

In 1999, the tenanted wing of the Greenall's operation was sold to the Japanese bank, Nomura for £370 million^[8] and the main Greenall's operation, involving 770 pubs and 69 budget lodges, was sold to Scottish and Newcastle for £1.1billion.^[9] Greenalls started to focus its resources on its De Vere and Village Leisure hotel branding at that time.^[9]

In February 2005, Greenalls sold The Belfry to The Quinn Group for £186 million.^[10]

The Greenall family connection remained as Lord Daresbury, the descendant of the original founder, remained the non-executive chairman. This tie was severed in 2006 when Daresbury stepped down from the post and much of the family's interest was sold.^[11]

In 2006, the business, by then known as De Vere Group, was acquired by The Alternative Hotels Group plc, a joint venture between HBOS and eight investors led by Richard Balfour-Lynn, for £745.5 million.^[12] The Alternative Hotels Group plc renamed itself De Vere Group in 2010.^[13]

De Vere Group sold Greenall's Gin for £7 million in a private equity-backed management buyout in 2011.^[14] Balfour-Lynn also stood down as chief executive in 2011.^[15]

In March 2014, private equity firm Starwood Capital Group acquired the business, by then known as De Vere Venues, and integrated it into Principal Hayley Group which it already owned.^[16]

In November 2014, Village Urban Resorts were sold to Denver-based private equity firm KSL Capital Partners for £485m.^[17]

In November 2016, Principal Hayley Group went through a major rebranding and re-investment project; the group became known as the Principal Hotel Company and split their portfolio between two groups of hotels: De Vere (a group of modern country estate hotels) and Principal (a group of luxury city hotels).^[18]

Greenall's ales are distributed by Carlsberg and brewed for them by Molson Coors in Burtonwood, near Warrington.^[19] Greenall's ales can still be bought in some pubs in the North West of England, although they are gradually disappearing. Often, only Greenall's Mild can be found. Greenall's Bitter is 3.6% ABV.^[20] Greenall's Mild is 3.1%.^[20]