Property agent Savills has appointed George Nicholas as global head of its hotels teams, based in London.
Property agent Savills has appointed George Nicholas as global head of its hotels teams, based in London.
Nicholas has more than 17 years experience in the global hotel investment industry and joins from JLL where he was executive vice president in the hotels and hospitality group.
He headed the global hotel desk for EMEA at JLL and specialised in cross-border capital flows and coordinating the business’s trophy hotel sales. Prior to this, he was director of hotels at CBRE and associate director at Colliers International Australia.
He was involved in some of the most high profile hotel transactions of recent years including Marriott Grosvenor Square, the InterContinental London Park Lane and the Eagle Portfolio of 42 Marriott hotels.
'With hotel transaction volumes across the globe already surpassing $54 bn in 2015, this is a very exciting time for the market. Over the next 18 months, we will be focussing on large scale European and USA gateway city assets supplying the demand generated from our significant Asia Pacific investor base,' commented George Nicholas. 'Growing the global hotels platform with “best in class” hotel real estate and banking experts will also be a key aim and we will be actively looking to recruit with this in mind.'
Savills and its Norwegian associate Heilo Eiendom have just been instructed by landlord Avinor to sell the Radisson Blu Oslo Airport Hotel in Norway.
The extensively refurbished 500-bedroom property, which is currently let to Rezidor Hotels Norway, is believed to be one of the largest single asset hotel investment opportunities to be brought to market in Europe in 2015.
Similarly, Savills has also launched a UK portfolio of regional country house hotels on behalf of Prima Hotels. Located across Cheshire, South Yorkshire and Leicestershire the portfolio is offered at a guide price of over £18 mln (€25 mln).