Home is where the heart is

Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the easyGroup entrepreneur, was in Larnaca last week to check progress on the first Cypriot outpost of his easyHotel chain. The 56-room property, which the local franchisee has wisely decided to make a little less orange than usual, is due to open in May next year. There are easyHotels in the pipeline for locations including Heathrow and Dubai, but Lawrence Alexander, the chain's chief executive, reckons that the multimillionaire's Greek Cypriot roots mean that he will be monitoring the Larnaca project with particular interest. “It's the return of the prodigal son,” he says.

Less than a kick, more like a nudge

Buried away in third-quarter results from InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) last week was a reference to a “reduced contribution from a portfolio of managed hotels in the UK”. It turns out that this is what remains of the £1 billion Holiday Inn portfolio sold by IHG three years ago to LRG Acquisition, a consortium comprising Realstar Group, Lehman Brothers Real Estate Partners and GIC Real Estate. Under the terms of the asset sale, the group retained a management contract that included a bonus payment based on performance. An IHG source said: “We continue to make decent money from the base management fee, but we didn't get a kicker.” Not a huge worry, then, but still a sign of how trading is getting tougher.

Courting favour by dressing down

Tim Martin, the colourful chairman and founder of JD Wetherspoon, is famous for pitching up at City results presentations in jeans, an open-necked shirt and cowboy boots. Since the start of the company's High Court case against Van de Berg, its former property advisor, a couple of weeks ago, the pub company boss has been sporting a suit and tie. But Martin is clearly finding it hard to cast off the dressing habits of a lifetime. According to the Morning Advertiser, his QC was overheard in the lift telling Martin's daughter that she must discourage him from wearing a garish Guinness tie he'd been given as a gift.

The pain of Cains' creditors

Creditors of Cains, the Liverpool brewer and pub operator, that collapsed in August, face losses of £38.5 million, according to a report from the administrators at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Trade creditors are out of pocket to the tune of almost £8 million, while the taxman is down more than £11 million. The report reveals that the Dusanj brothers, who controlled Cains and retained the freehold of the brewery, bought the business back for only £103,750.

Marketing marvel of Hobgoblin

The recent revival in sales of real ale is proving a boon to Marston's, the Pedigree and Old Empire brewer. But the surprise star of late has been its Hobgoblin ale, on the back of a promotional campaign pitching it as “the unoffical beer of Halloween”. Volumes in October jumped 60 per cent, thanks in part to the efforts of an actor dressed up as the Hobgoblin, who went round 60 pubs in London “castigating lager boys”.

businessfeatures@thetimes.co.uk

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