Aareal Bank has provided £330 mln (€374 mln) in senior financing for Henderson Park's £500 million acquisition of two of the largest hotels in the UK.
Henderson Park, the pan-European investment business founded by Nick Weber in 2016, announced the completion of the acquisition of the London and Birmingham Hilton Metropole hotels on Friday.
The assets are two of the largest hotels in the UK offer a total of 1,800 beds. As part of the transaction, Henderson Park has secured a seven-year, £330 mln senior financing through Aareal Bank.
Nick Weber, founding partner of Henderson Park, said: 'The completion of this acquisition brings two significant hotel assets into our portfolio, both of which offer a number of opportunities to further enhance their value through the implementation of a refurbishment and repositioning programme we intend to undertake with Hilton. The £330 mln financing that we have secured with Aareal is a further endorsement of both the assets’ defensive characteristics and high quality, as well as our business plans for them. We are also pleased to bring the first Hilton properties into our portfolio and we look forward to a rewarding long-term relationship with Hilton on these and other assets.'
The Hilton London Metropole is located on Edgware Road with close proximity to Paddington Station, which offers rapid access to Heathrow airport and, from 2018, the new Crossrail/Elizabeth line. It is London’s largest conference hotel by delegate capacity, second largest hotel by room count and one of Hilton’s flagship UK hotels, 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 UK’s largest conference hotel by delegate capacity, with 33 banquet and meeting rooms for up to 2,000 delegates. It is located at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre and adjacent to Birmingham International Airport and future HS2 train station.
This acquisition - signalled earlier this year - marked Henderson Park’s entry into the UK hotel market and followed investments into the sector in Paris, where it bought Le Méridien Étoile, the city’s largest hotel, and the purchase of The Ledra, a 5-star hotel in Athens in June.
