The publicly-quoted hotels group, Dalata has confirmed weekend reports and announced it is to raise €160m or €156m after costs, in a new share placing at a price of €3.75 per share.

That’s a discount of nearly 7% on last night’s closing price.

The new capital will be used to buy hotels across the island of Ireland, particularly those being sold on behalf of NAMA; to expand some of the company’s existing portfolio of close to 30 hotels it has acquired over the past two years; and to build new hotels on unidentified sites in central Dublin.

Dalata, which floated on the Dublin Stock Exchange just 18 months ago, spent close to €525m on hotel acquisitions during the first half of 2015 alone - including €450m spent acquiring nine former Moran Bewley's Hotels.

The company has also announced a near three-fold increase in revenues to €98m for the six month period to June and a near ten-fold increase in operating profits to €23.6m.