Henderson Park enters UK hotels market with double Hilton deal

Reliable sources said that the deal was worth around £500 mln (€553 mln) in total, with the London hotel acquisition representing a 5% yield, and the Birmingham property a 8.5% yield.

'Through this transaction we have acquired two of the UK’s largest hotels and conference centres and we’re thrilled to mark Henderson Park’s entry it to the UK hotels market with the purchase of such landmark assets,' commented Nick Weber, founding partner of Henderson Park. 'While these latest additions to our portfolio provide us with assets of substantial scale and pre-eminence in prime locations in the UK’s top two cities, they also offer a number of opportunities to enhance value through our own asset management.'

The transaction follows investments into the sector in Paris, where Henderson Park bought Le Méridien Étoile, the city’s largest hotel, and The Ledra, a 5-star hotel in Athens in June.

The Hilton London Metropole (pictured) is located on Edgware Road with close proximity to Paddington Station. It is London’s largest conference hotel by delegate capacity, second largest hotel by room count and one of Hilton’s flagship hotels in the UK capital with 1,059 bedrooms and 42 conference and meeting rooms.

The Hilton Birmingham Metropole is the UK’s largest hotel outside of London with 790 rooms and the largest conference hotel in the country by delegate capacity with 33 banquet and meeting rooms for up to 2,000 delegates. It is located at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre, adjacent to Birmingham International Airport and future HS2 train station.

Hilton will remain engaged as operator, while Henderson Park said its asset management team would look at new ways to further enhance the value of the properties over the medium to long term.

London & Regional Properties was tipped to be closing on the hotels earlier this year, but the deal did not go through. 

Jones Day acted for Henderson Park. CBRE acted for the vendor.