The Crerar Hotels portfolio, a collection of 10 four- and five-star hotels in Scotland and the Lake District, has been put up for sale with an asking price of £90m. The Caterer and Boutique Hotel News both reported the sale on 22 October 2026. The seller is the London-based private equity firm Blantyre Capital, and the agent is Savills.
Buyers do not have to take everything. Savills is offering the hotels as a single portfolio, in smaller groups or one by one. Boutique Hotel News put the total at 589 rooms.
The hotels in the Crerar Hotels portfolio
According to The Caterer, the portfolio is made up of:
- Balmoral Arms, Ballater, valued at more than £3.25m
- Dunkeld House Hotel, Perthshire
- Fonab Castle Hotel, Pitlochry
- Glencoe Inn & Gathering, Glencoe, with offers invited above £2.25m
- Golf View Hotel & Spa, Nairn
- Isle of Mull Hotel & Spa, Craignure
- Loch Fyne Hotel & Spa, Inveraray
- Oban Bay Hotel, Oban
- Thainstone House, Inverurie, valued at £2.5m
- Daffodil Hotel & Spa, Grasmere, in the Lake District
Values for the remaining hotels were not disclosed.
Who is selling, and why now
Blantyre Capital and its operating partner, Fairtree Hotel Investments, took control of the Crerar Hotel Group in March 2023, so the sale comes less than four years after the purchase. Boutique Hotel News reported that the business refinanced with HSBC UK in 2025 in a £40m deal. Since buying the group, Blantyre has refurbished several properties. The Caterer cited a £150,000 investment in a health club at Thainstone House earlier this year.
Neither report carried a statement from Blantyre explaining the timing of the sale, and no deadline for offers has been made public.
What Savills said
Steven Fyfe, director of hotel capital markets at Savills, described the portfolio as “a rare opportunity to acquire a substantial portfolio of luxury country house hotels”. He also pointed to the region’s appeal for visitors, citing its scenery, historic country houses, whisky distilleries and golf.
The hotels are spread across Scotland, from Perthshire and Glencoe to Oban and the Isle of Mull, with one property in Grasmere in the Lake District.
Why the Crerar sale matters
Savills is pitching the sale as a rare chance to buy a large group of upmarket country-house hotels in one go. The option of buying single hotels also opens the process to independent operators as well as investment funds. The outcome will show how much appetite there is for rural luxury hotels at a time when operators say their costs are still rising.
That pressure was a central theme of the Budget on 28 October. The Caterer reported that the national minimum wage will rise by 3.9%, from £12.71 to £13.20 an hour. The 20% VAT rate on hospitality was left unchanged, and the earlier cut to the threshold at which employers start paying National Insurance was not reversed. The Chancellor did announce more business rates relief for smaller hospitality, leisure and retail premises and a freeze for other businesses in the sector until 2028. Hotel groups of every size have felt the squeeze in recent years, as results from Premier Inn owner Whitbread have shown.
Hotel deals have kept going despite the headwinds. In the week to 16 October, the consultancy HVS recorded several UK transactions, including Leonardo Hotels’ purchase of the Bristol Hotel from the Doyle Collection.
What happens next
Savills is now marketing the hotels. If they are sold separately, the 10 properties could end up with different owners, so the shape of any deal will matter to the staff and communities around each one. No buyer has been named.
Sources: The Caterer, Crerar Hotels portfolio up for sale for £90m (22 October 2026); Boutique Hotel News, Crerar Hotels collection on the market for £90 million (22 October 2026); The Caterer, What does the 2026 Budget mean for hospitality? (28 October 2026); Hospitality Net / HVS, Europe Hotel Transactions Bulletin, week ending 16 October 2026 (20 October 2026).
