The holding company of the luxury hotel chain von Essen has been placed in administration.
The fast-growing Bath-based firm owns 28 prestige hotels in the UK and France, including two in Wiltshire – Bishopstrow, near Warminster, and Woolley Grange, near Bradford-on-Avon, as well as Bath's iconic Royal Crescent Hotel. It also owns Cliveden in Buckinghamshire, the former country house famous for its role in the Profumo scandal of the 1960s.
Accountants Ernst & Young (E&Y), who have been appointed as administrators, stressed that the hotels themselves are not in administration and are operating normally.
The company also owns a foods business as well as the Culpeper soaps retailer, which separately entered administration two months ago.
Some industry commentators have remarked on the rapid expansion of the business – it has been in operation for just over a decade – and the prices paid to acquire some of the hotels.
Joint administrator Angela Swarbrick told the BBC: "It is business as normal for the hotels and customers of von Essen Hotels can continue to enjoy their stay."
E&Y added that it was too early to say how the holding company's debts would be resolved, but said that there were no immediate plans to sell off its assets.
