InterContinental Hotels Group

Bass Hotels

The origins of the business may be traced to 1777 when William Bass established the Bass Brewery in Burton-upon-Trent. In 1875, its red triangle logo became the first trademark to be registered in the United Kingdom.The company later changed its name to Bass Charrington. Its first entry into the lodging sector came with acquisition of tied public houses. In 1969, it launched the Crest Hotel chain.In 1988, after the British government limited the number of pubs that brewers could directly own, Bass further invested in the expansion of its hotel business, including the purchase of Holiday Inn International from shareholders.

InterContinental

Pan American Airways founder Juan Trippe established the American Intercontinental Hotels chain as a division of Pan Am in 1946, and it operated its first hotel in Belém, Brazil. On 19 August 1981, Pan Am sold the holding company Inter-Continental Hotels Corporation to UK-based Grand Metropolitan for $500 million. As GrandMet focused its core business and expanded into fast food through the purchase of Burger King, it sold IHC to the Japanese-based Saison Group in 1988.In March 1998, Saison Group sold IHC to the British brewery Bass. In 2000, Bass sold its brewing assets to the Belgian brewer Interbrew for £2.3 billion and changed its name to Six Continents.In 2003, the independent corporation InterContinental Hotels Group was created after Six Continents split into two companies: Mitchells & Butlers took control of the restaurant assets while IHG focused on hotels and soft drinks. IHG retained Britvic, the soft-drinks division, until December 2005 when it sold its interest in the company by an initial public offering.In April 2017, the company announced that it been the subject of a malware attack in which hackers had stolen credit-card details.In February 2021, IHG announced an annual loss of $153 million caused by restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the company expected that the Holiday Inn Express brand would help in the recovery process.