French hotel giant Accor is divesting a 29-asset portfolio of German and Dutch hotels in a €234 mln sale-and-leaseback transaction less than a year after requiring most of the properties.
French hotel giant Accor is divesting a 29-asset portfolio of German and Dutch hotels in a €234 mln sale-and-leaseback transaction less than a year after requiring most of the properties.
German company Event Hotels, one of Accor's main franchisees, is to take possession of the portfolio before the end of the summer.
Event Hotels has agreed to pay €209 mln for the portfolio and committed to a €25 mln renovation plan.
Accor said the sale is part of the restructuring of the assets held by the group's property owner, HotelInvest.
The portfolio comprises two ibis budget, 11 ibis, 12 Mercure and four Novotel hotels. Of the 29 hotels sold, 27 were acquired in June 2014 as part of the acquisition of the Moor Park portfolio. The two other establishments – an ibis budget in Germany and a Mercure in the Netherlands – were previously owned by HotelInvest. Germany accounts for 18 of the hotels and 2,167 rooms, with the other 11 hotels and 1,187 rooms located in the Netherlands.
'By bringing the Moor Park deal to a close both quickly and in a way that offers promise over the long term, this major transaction with a top-quality partner is fresh testimony of HotelInvest's capacity to successfully pursue its strategy,' said Sébastien Bazin, chairman and chief executive officer of Accor.
Event Hotels already franchises 15 Accor hotels in Germany under the ibis, ibis Styles, Mercure and Pullman brands.
In mid-2014 Accor acquired 86 hotels in Germany and the Netherlands, plus a further 11 in Switzerland in transactions totalling €900 mln. The assets were acquired from two funds managed by Moor Park Capital Partners, a pan-European real estate private equity investment advisory business.
