The Real Hotel Company plc

The Real Hotel Company, whose origin can be traced back to 1877, owned, leased and managed over 55 hotels with almost 5,000 bedrooms throughout the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Belgium until its financial collapse in 2009. It focused both at the premium limited service and at the full service mid-market sectors, with a number of different brands. It also owned the New Connaught Rooms, one of London's largest multi-functional conference and banqueting venues between 1985 and 2009.

The forerunner of the company was the Birmingham Coffee House Company, founded in 1877, and evolved through the early 20th century to become the Arden and Cobden Group, owning three Birmingham properties: the Arden Hotel, Cobden Hotel and Norfolk Hotel. They were known as temperance hotels because they were unlicensed and did not serve alcohol.

In December 1985, Henry Edwards, the founding Chairman of the company, bought the Arden and Cobden Group. In 1986, he floated the company under the name of Friendly Hotels PLC on the , and then acquired six other hotels during 1986. (He had previously founded both Comfort Hotels (no relation to the brand owned by Choice Hotels International]), and Centre Hotels before selling them to Ladbroke and Bass respectively.)

One of the notable assets of the company were the Connaught Rooms, purchased in April 1987. They are a conference and banqueting centre in Covent Garden, London, and, after a major refurbishment programme, the company changed their name to the New Connaught Rooms. It was the first property in the industry to be awarded the ISO 9002 designation.

The Company announced the suspension of the company's ordinary shares which were listed on AIM on 13 January 2009 while trying to resolve its adverse financial position. On 21 January, the company was placed into administration with Shay Bannon and Antony Nygate of BDO Stoy Hayward as the administrators.

The company became a franchisee of Choice Hotels International (CHI), a US-based hotel group, in 1994. It rebranded its 27 Friendly Hotels and Friendly Stop Inns to the Comfort Inn and Quality Hotel brand names. The relationship prospered and in 1996, the company gained the master franchise from CHI to develop the Choice brands in the UK and Ireland, followed, in 1998, by the master franchise to develop the Comfort, Quality, Clarion and Sleep Inn brands across Continental Europe (excluding Scandinavia) from CHI. The company teamed with investors Kasterlee and Prem Group to set up a joint venture, Choice Hotels Ireland, in the Republic of Ireland.

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