Guests of John Malone now have a choice of Dublin hotels to stay in while visiting him in his Irish castle.
The Irish Times newspaper reports that the Colorado media mogul has bought the 193-room Hilton Dublin Hotel in the Irish capital with a partner, Lalco Hotel Group, for a reported €30 million (about $41.3 million).
That follows his purchase less than a year ago of Dublin's 195-room Trinity Capital Hotel, near Trinity College, at €35 million (roughly $48.2 million). Both hotels are considered four-star properties.
In late 2012, Malone — founder and chairman of Douglas County-based Liberty Media Corp. (Nasdaq: LMCA) and Liberty Global plc (Nasdaq: LBTYA) — snapped up 32,668-square-foot Humewood Castle on 427 acres in County Wicklow, Ireland, for the bargain price of €8 million ($11 million) — about a third of what the castle sold for in 2006, near the height of Ireland's economic boom.
Bloomberg describes the castle as "a neo-Gothic jumble of towers, gables, and turrets." Guests "simply say, 'Wow'," the New York Times enthuses.
But those investments are a drop in the bucket for Malone, who has spent about $40 billion acquiring European cable and communications stakes since 1999, Bloomberg estimates. Malone's international cable company Liberty Global owns Ireland's UPC among its extensive overseas holdings.
Malone — whose ancestors came from Ireland's Cork region — also is considered the largest individual landowner in the United States.