A joint venture between Benson Elliot and Walton Street Capital is investing €420m in a European hotel portfolio.
The companies have joined hotel specialist Algonquin in a partnership to buy eight prime hotels in seven European cities.
The Prime Europe Hotels portfolio was sold by Host Hotels & Resorts.
The eight freehold properties, which total 2,308 rooms, are in Venice, Paris, Milan, Rome, Warsaw, Nuremberg and Brussels.
The companies said the portfolio, which includes Rome’s Sheraton and The Westin Europa and Regina in Venice, has a profitable trading profile and strong cashflow.
They said the assets had benefited from substantial investment in recent years, and that significant opportunities remained for the joint venture to create further value through the implementation of targeted asset management initiatives.
Trish Barrigan, Benson Elliot senior partner, said the portfolio was of exceptionally high quality, with opportunities to grow income and value in a sector attracting increasing attention from investors.
Robert Bloom, senior principal at Chicago-based Walton Street, said the portfolio was being acquired at an attractive yield and significant discount to replacement cost at an opportunistic point in the investment cycle.
