US-based private investment company Starwood Capital Group (SCG) has acquired troubled Swiss hotel group Golden Tulip.

The deal will see SCG take control all of Golden Tulip's 260 hotels, spread across more than 45 countries. Golden Tulip entered into voluntary receivership in April, blaming a decline in occupancy rates and the cost of new investments.

According to Rich Gomet, SCG's managing director, the group intends to expand the Golden Tulip brands and to merge operations with Starwood's existing Louvre Hotels arm. The Louvre Hotels business currently operates four brands - Premiere Classe, Campanile, Kyriad and Kyriad Prestige.

Gomet said: "The Golden Tulip Hotels group is highly complementary to Louvre Hotels, both geographically and on a segment level. It will enable us, through a strategic alliance, to offer existing and new customers a full range in accommodation and service levels across over 40 countries, with over 1,000 hotels, comprising some 82,000 rooms."

Hans Kennedie, managing director of Golden Tulip, added: "The combination of Golden Tulip with Louvre Hotels will indeed create a new global hospitality force, based on European fundamentals. The combined group will create substantial synergies and benefits both to our customers as well as to our hotels."