MONTH IN REVIEW
MONTH IN REVIEW
www.hotelowner.co.uk
HOSTELS
Safestay
announces £11m
fund raise
Safestay, the owner and operator of
contemporary hostels, has announced
the company is carrying out a placing
and subscription to raise approximately
£11m, via a placing of approximately
29.2 million shares.
To raise the money Safestay is
placing 27.6 million new ordinary
shares at a price of 34 pence per share
and a subscription of approximately
1.8 million new ordinary shares at
a price of 34 pence per share. In
addition to the proposed placing and
subscription, the company intends to
provide all qualifying shareholders with
the opportunity to subscribe for an
aggregate of approximately 2.85 million
new ordinary shares at the same price.
The proposed fundraising is subject
to shareholder approval. Safestay said
a general meeting is expected to be
convened around 17 December 2018.
The hostel operator said fundraising
is “primarily” to continue the
implementation of the company’s roll-out
strategy. In particular the board believes
“based on the management team’s
extensive experience of developing
a brand led portfolio of sites, this is
an opportune time to expand and to
continue to benefit from early mover
advantage in this fragmented but
growing market”. The company intends to
use the net proceeds of the fundraising
for three primary purposes, being:
n g
rowth capital for existing
investments;
n t he conversion and refinancing of
two current sites; and
n t o fund potential opportunities in
new locations to accelerate growth
Safestay also believes the fundraising
will enable it to leverage its platform
and established brand with a view
to building a self-sustaining growth
position through significant organic
and acquisition opportunities.
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GDPR SECURITY
A new survey has revealed that 45%
of UK hospitality businesses are
risking penalties by failing to wipe the
memory off redundant IT equipment
before disposal.
The survey, carried out by Probrand.
co.uk, a digital marketplace for IT
products, also found that 97% of
hospitality businesses did not have
an official process or protocol for
disposing of obsolete IT equipment.
Additionally, 97% of hospitality
workers surveyed admit they “wouldn’t
even know” who to approach within
their company in order to correctly
dispose of old or unusable equipment.
According to the data, hospitality
businesses are one of the industries
most likely not to wipe existing data off
old IT equipment. Hospitality giant Marriott has revealed
the guest reservation database of
its Starwood Hotel brand has been
breached, potentially exposing
information of about 500 million guests.
Marriott said it has “taken
measures” to investigate and address
a data security incident involving the
Starwood guest reservation database.
On September 8, 2018, Marriott
received an alert from an internal security
tool regarding an attempt to access the
Starwood guest reservation database
in the United States. Marriott quickly
engaged leading security experts to
help determine what occurred. Marriott
learned during the investigation that
there had been unauthorized access to
the Starwood network since 2014.
The company said it recently
discovered that an unauthorised party
had copied and encrypted information,
and took steps towards removing it. On
November 19, 2018, Marriott was able to
decrypt the information and determined
that the contents were from the
Starwood guest reservation database.
Marriott has not finished identifying
duplicate information in the database,
but believes it contains information on
up to approximately 500 million guests
who made a reservation at a Starwood
property. For approximately 327
million of these guests, the information
includes some combination of name,
mailing address, phone number, email
address, passport number, Starwood
Preferred Guest (“SPG”) account
information, date of birth, gender, arrival
and departure information, reservation
date, and communication preferences.
Survey
shows 45% of
hospitality
businesses risk
GDPR penalties
TOP 3
FROM THE WEBSITE
1. T
hree
Richardson
hotels passed
back to owner
2. Britannia rated
‘worst hotel
chain’ in the UK
3. Life-size gorilla
statue worth
£20,000 stolen
from Soho hotel
Marriott
database hacked,
up to 500 million
guests’ data
‘compromised’
END: THAT’S ALL. YOU ARE NOW UP TO DATE
14
www.hotelowner.co.uk
December 2018