InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG)

InterContinental Hotels Group PLC informally InterContinental Hotels or IHG is a British multinational hotels company headquartered in Denham, UK.[3] IHG has over 710,000 rooms and 4,800 hotels across nearly 100 countries. Its brands include Candlewood Suites, Crowne Plaza, Even, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Hotel Indigo, Hualuxe, InterContinental and Staybridge Suites. Of the 4,602 hotels, 3,934 operate under franchise agreements, 658 are managed by the company but separately owned, and 10 are directly owned.

The origins of InterContinental Hotels Group can be traced back to 1777, when William Bass established the Bass Brewery in Burton-upon-Trent. In 1876, its red triangle trademark was the first registered in the United Kingdom. In 1989, the British Government limited the number of pubs which brewers could directly own, resulting in Bass investing in the expansion of its small line of hotels. In 1990, it purchased Holiday Inn International from Kemmons Wilson and expanded into North America

Pan American Airways founder Juan Trippe established the InterContinental brand as a division of PanAm and opened the first hotel in Belém, Brazil in 1946. In 1979, holding company InterContinental Hotels Corporation (IHC) was sold to UK-based company Grand Metropolitan. As GrandMet focused its core business and expanded into fast food through the purchase of Burger King, it sold IHC to Japanese-based Saison Group in 1988.

In March 1998, Saison Group sold IHC to British brewery Bass, which traces its roots back to 1777, when William Bass established the Bass Brewery in Burton-upon-Trent. In 1988, in reaction to the British government limiting the number of pubs which brewers could directly own, Bass invested in the expansion of its small line of hotels. In 2000, Bass sold its brewing assets (and the rights to the Bass name) to the major Belgian brewer Interbrew for £2.3 billion and changed its name to Six Continents