Precinct has made an improved offer for hotel group Jurys Doyle - the new offer is E17.50 per share for 80% control of the group.
It has also asked the takeover panel for an extension to tomorrow's deadline to make a formal bid for the group.
The revised offer is at a premium of 40% to the level of Jurys shares in May when the offer was first made.
Precinct says its directors are committed to delivering what they believe to be an attractive cash offer to all the shareholders of Jurys Doyle and that they are making this revised offer in the light of Jurys potential proceeds from the sale of its site in Ballsbridge.
Precinct is also making an alternative offer of E16.75 a share for 65% control.
Earlier today the Board of Jurys Doyle announced it had agreeed a deal to sell the site of its Jurys Ballsbridge and The Towers hotels in Ballsbridge, Dublin 4 to Padholme, a company controlled by buildler Sean Dunne for €260m.
The site measures about 4.84 acres and is situated at Pembroke Road and Lansdowne Road in Dublin 4. Completion of the disposal of the site is expected to be completed by October, however it is expected that Jurys Doyle will continue trading at its existing operations on the site until late 2007.
Sean Dunne's bid of over €260m beat 12 others for the site and the sum is believed to be highest price ever offered for a piece of property in this country.
Mr Dunne is chief executive of Mountbrook Homes. Earlier this month he secured the last site in the Grand Canal Dock redevelopment scheme in Dublin. He is also responsible for a luxury development in Foxrock in south county Dublin.
Last month Jurys said it was selling five acres of land containing Jurys Ballsbridge and the Towers as the two 'properties were not performing to the required levels'. The two hotels are inefficient by modern standards with two few bedrooms occupying too big an area.
The €260m price tag smashes all previous records for a property transaction in Ireland in such a concentrated area. To justify the extraordinary cost, it is inevitable that what is built there will be high rise and expensive to buy or rent.
Analysts say that when the two hotels are demolished, the site would ideally house about 705 luxury apartments of about 1,000 square feet each. This means the building costs would be in the region of €400,000 per apartment before the developer even starts to excavate.
Each high end luxury property could cost €590,000 before the developer even attempts to make any money out of them. Sources suggest the apartments will be sold for about €900,000 a unit.
However, any deal can only be completed with the approval of Jurys Doyle shareholders. They will meet in September, paving the way for the deal to be completed in October.
Jurys Doyle said it expects the net proceeds of the sale of the site - after deduction costs of about €2m, to be about €258m.
Jurys Doyle also said this morning since it had given an update at its AGM in April, trading in the combined Jurys Hotel Division in the UK and the US and across the combined Jurys Inns division in Ireland and the UK continues to be 'satisfactory'.
However, the hotel group said the trading performance of its four star properties in Dublin continues to be 'disappointing'. Jurys Doyle said that while it had experienced some improvement in build-up at its Jurys Inn Parnell Street, Jurys Inn Heathrow and Jurys Boston Hotel, they are not yet performing at expected levels.
But Jurys said it is reassured by the good performance of its latest Jurys Inn, which opened in Southampton last May. The company said that the recent events in London are having some - but not a material - impact on its London operations.
'Overall, we continue to aim to deliver further underlying growth in turnover and profit in 2005,' the company said in this morning's statement.
Shares in Jurys Doyle were down 15 cent to €15.60 in Dublin this evening.
