Former Astor home turned luxury hotel floats to a premium on market deb ut

Cliveden, one of England's finest country houses and now a luxury hotel, ended its first day of trading yesterday at 85p, up from its flotation price of 73p. The 376-acre estate in Berkshire was home to the Astor family in the 1930s, when it played host to the pro-appeasement lobby, and in the 1960s the house again gained notoriety during the Profumo scandal.

The house is now owned by two businessmen, John Lewis and John Tham, who made the Royal Crescent Hotel in Bath a success and have a number of similar projects planned. Beeson Gregory were brokers to the float. The hotel made operating profits of pounds 1.4m on sales of pounds 6.4m to the end of October 1995. According to the prospectus, trading in the first 20 weeks of this year was "significantly ahead" of the same period last year.