W Hotel in Paris expected to fetch around €100m

The W Hotel in Paris operated by Starwood Hotels is expected to be sold within the next few days for around €100 mln, PropertyEU has learned.

Located on the Rue Meyerbeer in the Opéra district, the 91-room hotel is owned by Spanish fund Meridia Capital and has drawn strong investor interest from abroad, according to CBRE which has been marketing the property.

‘Interest in the hotel has been very international, including offers from Asian and Middle Eastern investors,’ said Catherine Rawanduzi, head of CBRE Hotels in France. ‘In addition, the buyer may have the opportunity to extend the hotel by acquiring the Ministry of Justice office building next door.’

Investors looking to snap up another Parisian hotel before Christmas need not venture beyond the Opéra district. The Paris Marriott Opéra Ambassador Hotel on the Boulevard Haussmann is also up for grabs. ‘It will probably sell for around €200 mln plus and is certainly the kind of asset that Asian investors would be interested in,’ said Marc Socker, senior director of hotel fund management at Invesco Real Estate.

Last week, Invesco acquired the 4-star Mercure Terminus Nord hotel in central Paris on a behalf of an Asian separate account mandate. The vendor was Morgan Stanley’s MSREF fund. The sale price was not disclosed, but the hotel is believed to have sold for about €80 mln, reflecting an initial yield of 6%, according to those who track the market. CBRE advised.

Qatari investors are also a force to be reckoned with in Paris. ‘There’s a lot of Middle Eastern money, especially Qatari – it’s flowing into Paris in a big way, because it tends to be their next target after London,’ said Dirk Bakkar, head of EMEA hotels at Colliers. ‘Singaporean investors are the next biggest group, often backed by Chinese money via Singaporean REITs. London is such an overstretched market that Paris is the next choice.’

To read more about international investors in Paris, click on the article 'Asian investors dominate Paris hotel market' below

See pages 21 to 28 in the December edition of PropertyEU Magazine for more on hotel investment.