The FINANCIAL -- Seven hotels have been sold to Halcyon Hotels and Resorts and its joint venture partner Patron Capital, off a guide price of £40.5m, in what is the largest transaction so far involving properties belonging to the increasingly shrinking Von Essen Hotels group.

Experienced hotelier Nigel Chapman, who heads Halcyon Hotels and Resorts, said he was delighted with the acquisition, which involves buying back the four hotels under the Luxury Family Hotels banner - Woolley Grange, Fowey Hall, Moonfleet Manor and the Ickworth hotel - which he and Nicholas Dickinson, his business partner at the time, sold to Von Essen in early 2006 for about £30m.

Also included in the purchase are the Elms, Thornbury Castle and New Park Manor.

Earlier this year Chapman announced his return to the UK market to launch Halcyon as a new family-friendly luxury group, with the purchase of the 41-bedroom Polurrian hotel at Mullion, Cornwall, off a sale price of £2.3m.

Seventeen hotels out of the original portfolio of 27 hotels - 26 in the UK and one in France - which were put up for sale following the collapse into administration of Von Essen Hotels in April with debts of around £295m, have now been sold, through Christie & Co. The administrators, Ernst & Young, say they expect to announce further sales shortly.

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