Aina Hospitality Plans To Invest €600M In Second Fund

18 July 2017 – Expansión

Aina Hospitality, the management company that specialises in the hotel sector, and which is driven by the wealth management group Edmund de Rothschild, is preparing a new fund. On 15 September, the company will launch Aina II, which will have an investment capacity of €600 million and which will focus on superior four-star and five-star hotels.

The launch of this second investment vehicle tightens relations between Aina Hospitality and Edmund de Rothschild. Both parties have created a joint company through which they seek to boost investment funds in the hotel sector every three years. “Edmund de Rothschild collaborates with management companies that specialise in different sectors; now we are joining this group of associates”, said the President of the company, Jaime Tàpies.

Aina Hospitality will begin raising funds in September and the process is expected to take a year and a half, with the first window closing in March 2018. The aim is to secure investment of €300 million and to double the capacity through debt financing (leverage).

“The funds that invest in hospitality are usually of an institutional size; we are one of the few funds that provides an opportunity to medium-sized private investors”, said Tàpies. Aina’s first fund established a minimum entry investment of €1 million. No minimum ticket has been set for this new vehicle yet, although it will probably be somewhat higher than that of its predecessor.

The yield on Aina II will amount to around 12% per annum On the other hand, the rental income will contribute 8%, whilst the appreciation in the value of the real estate assets may vary between 3% and 7%. The fund’s life cycle will be seven years, which may be extended by two more years: “That does not mean that all of our investments will remain in the portfolio for the duration. The average life of an operation tends to last for between five and six years”.

The company plans to undertake between 15 and 20 operations and will apply a similar risk policy to that of the previous fund. “We will not invest more than 25% of the fund in a single country or city”, he explained. The company is expanding its radius of operation to 35 cities in Europe, including countries outside of the Eurozone such as the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Scandinavia.

Aina has a special interest in Barcelona and Madrid. “Occupancy rates cannot grow much more, but we do see a lot of potential in terms of property prices”, said Tàpies, who added that demand is continuing to grow by more than supply in both cities. Nevertheless, he said that, nowadays, there are other more interesting cities such as London, Paris, Rome and Milan.

Original story: Expansión (by Gabriel Trindade)

Translation: Carmel Drake