Gamble of the week: bargain of a hotel play

Although demand is picking up at this hotelier's small chain of four-star hotels, its share price doesn't appear to have caught up yet. But at this price, it looks tempting, says Paul Hill.

I regularly play tennis against two friends who work in the hotel industry, and their mood has become ever-more sanguine over the past 18 months. Occupancy levels and room rates have perked up. And this improving trend, which began in London, is gradually filtering its way down through the country especially in the tourist hot spots of Bath, Bristol, Oxford and Cambridge.

What's surprising, though, is that this trend has not yet been reflected in the shares of Peel Hotels, which have underperformed operators such as Intercontinental Group by 50% and the wider travel and leisure sector by 35% this year.

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Paul gained a degree in electrical engineering and went on to qualify as a chartered management accountant. He has extensive corporate finance and investment experience and is a member of the Securities Institute.

Over the past 16 years Paul has held top-level financial management and M&A roles for blue-chip companies such as O2, GKN and Unilever. He is now director of his own capital investment and consultancy firm, PMH Capital Limited.

Paul is an expert at analysing companies in new, fast-growing markets, and is an extremely shrewd stock-picker.