Hotelier Mr John Fitzpatrick is selling his chain of hotels in the United States to an Irish-American consortium for $110 million, according to weekend reports.

The hotels are the Fitzpatrick Manhattan Hotel and the Fitzpatrick Grand Central Hotel, both in New York, and the Fitzpatrick Chicago Hotel.

Mr Fitzpatrick, son of the legendary Irish hotelier Mr Paddy Fitzpatrick, is the largest shareholder in the group. It is thought that he will remain on as group managing director following completion of the deal.

According to the Sunday Business Post, the hotels are being bought by Irish-American businessman Mr Garrett Sullivan, Mr Niall Shanahan, a commercial property specialist who runs a project management company in Dublin, financier Mr Michael Hanlon and businessman Mr George Berkow.

The group is understood to be planning to invest between $30 million and $40 million in expanding the chain along the US east coast as well as upgrading the three existing properties.

Sources close to Mr Fitzpatrick were unable to confirm the reports yesterday.

The most recent figures for Fitzpatrick Enterprises, the firm behind the Fitzpatrick hotels group in the US, recorded a loss of $3.5 million for the year to October 3rd, 2002. Turnover for the year was $17.9 million, a fall on the previous year.

In October 2002, a year in which New York hotels were struggling with the aftermath of 9/11, the group's US land and buildings were valued at $82 million.

Mr Fitzpatrick opened the first Fitzpatrick hotel in New York in 1991.

Six years later he acquired a second New York building - a former hotel that had been converted into offices. Each cost around $11 million.

He acquired the hotel in Chicago for $23 million in 2001.