Hispania is creating Spain’s first hotel REIT, focusing on the holiday resort sector.
The Madrid-based company, which this week reported a net €17.5m profit for its first nine months, said it would invest €339m in the new REIT, equivalent to an 80.5% stake.
Spanish operator Grupo Barceló, taking a 19.5% stake, is selling a portfolio of 11 hotels and one shopping centre to the new vehicle.
The company will continue to manage the hotels for Hispania, with an initial 15-year lease contract in place.
The REIT has an option to buy five additional hotels and a second shopping centre from Barceló, taking the portfolio purchase to €421m.
Hispania said it aimed to duplicate the size of the initial investments, creating a Spanish resort portfolio managed by different leading hotel operators.
Concha Osácar, Hispania board member, said the new REIT would seek to attract institutional capital, creating “new sources of capital for the [Spanish] hotel industry”.
The REIT will have an initial €187m in equity and a syndicated loan amounting to €234m.
The investment takes Hispania’s total investment to €800m – around 90% of its full investment fire-power – since its IPO in March last year.
It said that, by the end of 2014, it had bought 25 assets, with a 55% weighting to offices and 23% to residential.
Hotel assets account for 22%.
Read more on Spanish REITs here.
