HVS EMEA Hospitality Newsletter – Week Ending 19 November 2010
A New Owner For The Grosvenor House Hotel | Sahara India Pariwar, a conglomerate run by Indian billionaire Subrata Roy, is to acquire the Grosvenor House hotel, on London’s Park Lane, from the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) for £470 million. According to The Sunday Times, the bank had hoped to gain up to £700 million from the sale, but the price was dropped after two previous auctions failed. RBS took over the 494-room iconic hotel, which opened in 1929, in 2001 as part of a £1.2 billion sale-and-leaseback deal for 12 Le Méridien hotels; it has been trying to sell the property for the last three years. Sahara, which has already put down a deposit on the hotel, has been in talks with RBS since October, and if the final negotiations run smoothly Mr Roy could be the new owner of the property before Christmas.
Could It Be A Luxury London Trio For Qatar? | According to the Daily Mail, Qatar Holding, the investment arm of the Qatari royal family, is believed to be in the early stages of negotiations for the purchase of the Maybourne Hotel Group for £1 billion. If the deal is successful, Qatar Holding, which acquired the iconic Harrods department store earlier this year for £1.5 billion, will add the Maybourne Group’s three famous London hotels to its portfolio: the 123-room Connaught, the 214-room Berkeley and the 203-room Claridge’s.
A New Moon Rises Over Buckatree Hall | London-based privately owned financial services business the Matrix Group has sold the freehold of the Buckatree Hall Hotel, near the town of Telford, in west central England, to >b>Grant Moon for an undisclosed sum. Mr Moon, who, along with his family, has owned many leisure businesses over the years, now intends to carry out a full refurbishment of the hotel and develop leisure facilities at the site.
Former London Cinema To Become A Hotel | HVS Hodges Ward Elliott, jointly with Savills, has been appointed by Chelsfield Partners and EADL to market the former Pavilion cinema on Shepherd’s Bush Green, London. The Grade II-listed building has full consent for conversion to a 242-room, high quality four-star hotel with extensive conference facilities and a large restaurant and bar. The hotel will take advantage of its close proximity to Westfield London Shopping Centre and BBC Media City. The need for a quality hotel in the area will be even greater following the completion of other regeneration initiatives, such as the redevelopment of Shepherd’s Bush Market and the White City Partnership Masterplan. The building’s impressive historic façade will provide the hotel with a distinctive landmark appearance and a dominant vantage point overlooking Shepherd’s Bush Green. With an average room size of 30 m², the hotel is set to become the market leader in an area which is currently rather undersupplied with hotels. Commenting on the project, Mark Wenlock, a director at Chelsfield, said: “This is a one-of-a-kind opportunity to develop one of west London’s leading hotels in a dynamic and developing area.”
Rezidor’s Road Trip | Driving around Sweden this week looking for a couple of spots to park its new inns, Rezidor Hotel Group finally settled on the city of Lund, in the southeast, and the port of Helsingborg, in the southwest. Now suitable spaces have been found, the 190-room Park Inn Lund and the 215-room Park Inn Helsingborg are expected to open in 2013. Both properties are owned by Swedish-based Midroc Property Development and will be operated by the Winn Hotel Group under franchise agreements. Construction of the Helsingborg hotel is scheduled to start in summer 2011. Rezidor currently has four Park Inns in operation in Sweden, two of which are operated by Winn Hotel Group, and the Park Inn Malmö is due to open at the beginning of 2011.
Sol Meliá In Serbia | Sol Meliá is reportedly in the initial stages of an agreement with US-based investment firm Sigma Capital Management and state-owned Serbian company Stara Planina for the management of three four-star hotels in the Stara Planina mountain resort in eastern Serbia. Stara Planina is to provide the infrastructure and land for the project, which will mark Sol Meliá’s entry into the Serbian market, and Sigma will take charge of the construction. The hotels will have a total of 450 beds. Between €35 million and €40 million is expected to be invested in the development over the next year and a half.
A New Gig For Travelodge | This week, budget hotel company Travelodge completed a £24 million deal for new hotels adjacent to two major event arenas in the UK: the MEN Arena, in Manchester, northwest England, and the NEC, in Birmingham, the Midlands. The hotels will each have 200 rooms. Travelodge has already announced the development of new properties near to the ExCel in London’s docklands area; the Liverpool Echo Arena, in Liverpool; and the Metro Radio Arena, in Newcastle. The UK company has now got its sights set on finding suitable properties near the O2 arena and Wembley stadium, in London, and the SECC, in Glasgow. Commenting on the news, Travelodge’s managing director for development, Paul Harvey, said: “the explosion in the popularity of live music and comedy events in recent years had seen the company’s hotels near to arenas out-perform expectations during the recession.”
A Premier Expansion In London | Whitbread’s Premier Inn brand announced this week that it is to almost double the size of its London portfolio. The company currently has 48 hotels within the M25 area and it plans to add another 47 to this figure, with either new build properties or conversions of existing hotels/office space. Derek Griffin, head of acquisitions at Premier Inn Greater London, said that the UK capital was the brand’s number one market and there was scope to extend its presence further. “our strong performance as a business and our Whitbread plc-backed covenant means that we’re an attractive partner for developers and investors and we will look at any opportunity if it can help us improve our portfolio”, he commented.
A Second Campanile For Glasgow | This week, Paris-based Louvre Hotels, the budget division of Groupe du Louvre, opened its second Campanile property in the city of Glasgow, Scotland: the 103-room Campanile Hotel Glasgow International Airport, which previously operated as the Purple Hotel. This opening brings Campanile’s portfolio in Great Britain up to 19 properties. The brand currently has a presence in nine countries across Europe.
A New Citymax Opens In Dubai | Two years after it was created, Citymax Hotels, part of the Landmark Group, has opened its second hotel: the 691-room Citymax Hotel Bur Dubai, which opened its doors in the emirate of Dubai, UAE. Hotel number one, the Citymax Hotel Al Barsha, opened in Dubai earlier this year. Commenting on the midmarket brand’s expansion, Michael Weyland, general manager of Citimax Hotels, said: “A decade ago the UAE may have been considered a stopover option, today it has firmly established itself as a holiday destination in its own right…We are very excited about Citymax Hotel Bur Dubai entering this rapidly growing market and have already received many online bookings prior to the opening.”
Get Fractional In The Middle East | There will be some fractions going on in Abu Dhabi, UAE, next week…no, not those horrible mathematic constructions we all had to learn at school but the much more exciting Shared Ownership Fractional Summit Middle East! This two-day event, which is to be an unparalleled networking and knowledge-gathering exercise, starts in just four days (on the 23 November) at the Yas Hotel in Abu Dhabi. Sponsored by HVS, the conference will also include discussions on the fractional aviation, yachting and supercar sectors, and how they can be perfect partners for shared ownership real estate operators. Book your ticket today and next Tuesday you could be mingling with shared ownership experts from around the world. You can save US$100 on your ticket with the discount code “HVS” – for more information visit http://fractionallife.com/newsletters/hvsshared.html.
InterContinental Hotels Group Speeds Away With The Grand Prize | InterContinental Hotels Group was awarded the Jury Grand Prix at the 2010 Worldwide Hospitality Awards, which took place on 15 November at the InterContinental Paris le Grand, in Paris. Other winners include Jumeirah Group’s Gerald Lawless, who was presented with the Lifetime Achievement award, and the W Barcelona, which won the Best Novelty Hotel of Year trophy. Represented at the ceremony, which overall paid tribute to the achievement of hoteliers, particularly during one of the industry’s most difficult times, were a total of 200 hotel brands from 27 countries.
Gladen’s Tidings | The news from Spain by Esther Gladen, Business & Market Intelligence Analyst, HVS Madrid. High Tech Hoteles opened its fourth hotel in Barcelona: The 41-room Petit Palace Boquería, which is housed in a refurbished building in the city’s ‘Gothic Quarter’. NH Hoteles opened the NH Palacio de Tepa in Madrid; after a two-year refurbishment, the former small antique palace is now a five-star hotel with 84 rooms. The Spanish hotel company also recently opened the 115-room NH Girona next to the Palacio de Congressos in Girona. NH Hoteles plans to open two more projects in 2011: the 224-room NH Rivera de Manzanares, which will open at the beginning of 2011, and the Hotel Alonso Martinez, which is due to open next September. Barceló opened the 64-room Barceló Jandía Club Premium, its second adults-only hotel – the group invested more than half a million euro in adapting the hotel to this growing segment. Hoteles Playa is to operate the Hotel Parque Central in Valencia. The Almería-based company has reached an agreement with the owners of the property, Banco de Valencia, and will reopen the hotel in January 2011; before closing in July of this year, the hotel was operated by Hesperia for several years. Millennium Group is negotiating the purchase of the historic building of the Hotel Tryp Ambassador, in Madrid, with real estate company Reyal Urbis and the private owner. A purchase price of between €50 million and €70 million is expected to be achieved and the idea is that 183-room hotel will continue to operate in the building if the deal is successful.
- InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) – Share prices rose by the end of the week, despite IHG trading at a 46-day low.
- NH Hoteles – The Spanish company's share price fell in four of the last five days, a five-day fall of 4.1%.
- Sol Meliá – Sol Meliá's five-year credit default swap rose by 7.71 basis points this week, closing at 553.99 basis points.
About HVS
HVS is the world's leading consulting and valuation services organization focused on the hotel, restaurant, shared ownership, gaming, and leisure industries. Established in 1980, the company performs more than 4,500 assignments per year for virtually every major industry participant. HVS principals are regarded as the leading professionals in their respective regions of the globe. Through a worldwide network of over 50 offices staffed by 300 experienced industry professionals, HVS provides an unparalleled range of complementary services for the hospitality industry. For further information regarding our expertise and specifics about our services, please visit www.hvs.com.
