Hotel investors eye Netherlands, Southern Europe

The Netherlands and Southern Europe are gaining ground as destinations for international hotel investors.

The Amsterdam hotel investment market is interesting at a time when all but opportunistic investors are avoiding Dutch real estate like the plague.

In October Invesco Real Estate (IRE) purchased the mid-market Park Hotel in the Dutch capital and leased it back to the operator Grand City Hotels for a period of 20 years. Around the same time Blackstone sold the 5-star Hotel Pulitzer in the city to a private investor in a €100 mln deal, and in June AXA Real Estate - acting for Chinese conglomerate HNA - picked up the 5-star NH Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky on Amsterdam’s Dam Square for €157 mln.

Further deals are pending in Amsterdam. InterContinental Hotel Amstel - a favourite with stars of screen and stage - is on the market just two years after Lebanese investor and businessman Toufic Aboukhater purchased it from Morgan Stanley Real Estate Investing. Rezidor’s Radisson Blu in Amsterdam is also looking for a new owner.

A number of cross-border investors will be keen to get into the action in Amsterdam. Spain, on the other hand, has suffered a far-worse financial implosion but given the signs of increasing positive sentiment about the market it is no surprise that the hotel market is responding there too.

During 2013, Qatar Holdings, part of the oil nation’s sovereign wealth fund, acquired the five-star WBarcelona hotel in Spain’s second city for €200 mln. More equity is hovering over the market. Dominic Murray, Director for Brokerage EMEA, CBRE: ‘ Some of the US groups are looking to buy hotel debt or have bought debt in order to acquire the assets. We have seen growing appetite in the last six months.’

Qatar and Brunei, through the Dorchester Group, each acquired a luxury hotel in Italy this year. It is not clear, however, whether this is the start of a wider hotel investment trend in the country, Murray siad.

‘Rome and Venice clearly have an appeal, but the difference between Italy and Spain is that over time we will see investors looking at Spain as a whole and not just Barcelona and Madrid. In Italy I struggle to see that much appetite outside Rome and Venice.’

Murray said he was also beginning to see trades in Central and Eastern Europe. ´I would expect more activity in Poland and the Czech Republic. Poland in particular is perceived as a good market,’ he added.

Meanwhile, a number of loan portfolios with underlying UK hotel assets are being unloaded by Lloyds Bank and the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation.

Cormac Mac Ruairi
Staff reporter