The private equity firm TPG is among a pack of suitors vying to buy the easyHotel chain for about £400m.
Sky News has learnt that TPG has been shortlisted alongside several other bidders to buy the business, which is backed by the easyJet founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou.
Proprium Capital Partners, a real estate fund, is also understood to have expressed an interest in easyHotel although it was unclear on Thursday whether it had made it through to the second round of the auction.
EasyHotel trades from 50 sites in 11 countries, including 19 in the UK.
The company employs about 330 people.
Previously a listed company, easyHotel is 79.1%-owned by ICAMAP Investments and Ivanhoé Cambridge.
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Sir Stelios’s easyGroup is understood to own the vast majority of the remaining shares.
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Founded in 2004, the chain comprises more than 4,000 rooms and has plans to grow to 120 hotels in the next four years.
It recently announced an expanded lending facility with Santander UK as it seeks to accelerate its pipeline of new openings.
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TPG and easyHotel both declined to comment.
