British Transport Hotels - The End (1983-4)

The End (1983-4)

Following the election of the Thatcher government in 1979, and the deteriorating economic situation, pressure was put on nationalised industries such as British Rail to consider asset disposal. It was not long before the BTH Hotels were under review. The management at the time, led by Peter Land, tried to establish a viable structure for a management buyout, which would have kept the group more or less intact and would have delivered a smooth transfer to the private sector. As Peter Land notes in his book Sauce Supreme, politics rendered this plan impossible and the hotels were sold by open tender, realising a much lower value for the UK taxpayer than the management buyout would have done. By 1984 the disposal was complete and the history of BTH was at an end.