Northwood, a global real estate investor established by a former CEO of Blackstone Real Estate, has acquired the Four Seasons Hotel in Prague from international real estate private equity group Avestus Capital Partners.
Northwood, a global real estate investor established by a former CEO of Blackstone Real Estate, has acquired the Four Seasons Hotel in Prague from international real estate private equity group Avestus Capital Partners.
The financial details were not disclosed but a Czech media site reported that the asset was being offered for the equivalent of €80 mln two years ago.
Last year, the Irish Times newspaper reported that Avestus and Northwood Investors missed out on the acquisition of a €60 mln loan owned to the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation in relation to the hotel. The two investors had made a strong equity bid but were unable to win the loan as the debt markets for hotels in CEE were frozen at the time. The loan ultimately went to Irish bad bank NAMA.
Quinlan Private, the predecessor of Avestus, opened the five-star hotel in 2001 and Avestus will continue as asset manager under Northwood's ownership.
Four Seasons is a luxury, 5-star hotel located in the city’s Old Town, close to Prague Castle and the Charles Bridge. It unites the styles of four architectural periods - baroque, classical and renaissance, all interconnected by a modern building. The Prague team of law firm Dentons advised the vendor in the sale of the five-star hotel on the River Danube.
Jiøí Stržínek, partner and co-head of Dentons' Prague real estate group, commented: 'This was the third high-profile transaction in the hotel sector in Prague that Dentons was recently involved in – the others were the sale of the Kempinski and the Intercontinental hotels.'
Avestus is a long-standing Dentons client. In the past Dentons' Prague team advised Avestus on a number of transactions, most recently on the sale of its shares (together with AFI) in a company owning the prime shopping centre Palác Flóra in Prague to Atrium European Real Estate.
BARCELONA SHOPPING CENTRE
This is the second investment deal in recent weeks between Northwood and Avestus. In May a group of investors represented by Avestus sold a majority stake in Barcelona's second largest shopping centre to Northwood for in excess of €250 mln, according to well-informed market-sources.
Based in New York, Northwood is a global real estate investment firm founded in 2006 by John Kukral, former President and CEO of Blackstone Real Estate Advisors. Avestus is understood to have acted on the deal on behalf of a number of investors including Ireland's bad bank NAMA.