Rooney Anand’s RedCat Pub Company has acquired the 18-strong Coaching Inn Group for an undisclosed sum.

The Coaching Inn Group, which operates The Talbot Hotel in Malton and The Feather’s in Helmsley, along with 16 other hotels and coaching inns in market towns, has said it will continue to be run as a family business following significant investment from the RedCat pub company.

Group founder Kevin Charity said it was going to be very much business as usual in all its hotels that were now playing such an important role at the very heart of communities right across the country.

This year the group had jumped from 44 to 21 in the Best Companies top one hundred list of employers, he said.

“We’ve become a very people focused business over the past four years, just constantly maintaining that culture, keeping on improving and looking at what we can do better and how we as a management team can serve our people – that’s been the key and will go on being so,” said Kevin.

“Anyone joining us for a career in hospitality will continue to have the benefit of our pioneering in-house training and development schemes that allow progression from minor roles to General Manager,” he said.

Malton’s Talbot Hotel was officially reopened under The Coaching Inn Group last August following the covid lockdown .

In early July, The Talbot Malton Hotel Company announced it was not reopening the hotel immediately due to the national situation surrounding coronavirus and its effect on the domestic tourism market, together with the practicalities of complying with regulatory requirements, putting more than 40 jobs at risk.

However an agreement was reached between The Coaching Inn Group and The Fitzwilliam Malton Estate to take over the operation of The Talbot.

Originally built as a hunting lodge in the 1600s, it first became an inn 280 years ago in 1740.

RedCat Pub Company, is founded and chaired by former Greene King boss Rooney Anand, is acquiring the 18-strong Coaching Inn Group.

The Coaching Inn Group, founded in 1996 by chief executive Kevin Charity, has its roots in Boston, Lincolnshire.

Having secured investment from the BGF in 2015, the group acquired more than 10 sites over the past six years.