British company buying the Hotel Formentor

One of the world's most famous and prestigious hotels, the Hotel Formentor, which nestles on the north east coast of Majorca, is being bought by a major British investment house for an estimated £60 million. The luxurious five star hotel has been a favoured holiday destination for the world's rich, famous and powerful ever since it was opened to the public in May 1929. The bay, over which the emblematic establishment looks, was a popular mooring place for the Royal Navy. Paintings of the moored fleet adorn some of the hotel's long passageways. Sir Winston Churchill was a guest and it still has a suite named after the World War II Prime Minister. The hotel has always been a popular spot for the Monaco Royal Family, ever since Prince Rainier and Grace Kelly chose it for their honeymoon, when cruising the Western Mediterranean. The impressive list of guests to have crossed the hotel's threshold also include Sir Peter Ustinov, who returns to the hotel every August, Prince Edward, Elizabeth Taylor, Mikhail Gorbachev, Michael Douglas, The Dalai Lama, Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman and a few years ago Liam Gallagher popped in for a five-star take-away meal for the villa he was sharing with Patsy Kensit. One of the international highlights of the hotel's illustrious life to date was the hosting of the European Union summit in 1995 which was attended by John Major. Since then it has also been the setting for high level Middle East peace talks involving Yasser Arafat. The British purchase of the hotel, which comes a year after British tour operator Airtours bought one of Europe's largest resort complexes in nearby Alcudia for £65 million, is shrouded in secrecy, but the Mayor of Pollensa, Francisca Ramon, said: “no one has informed me that the deal has been closed, all I know is that I have been called to a meeting of the Rotger Villalonga de Pollensa Foundation (which owns a ten per cent stake in the property) at which the sale of the hotel is on the agenda.”