Port Hotels Buys Two Hotels in Alicante

23 August 2017

Port Hotels has closed the purchase of the Holiday Inn Alicante-Playa de San Juan and the Holiday Inn Elche from the Jualba group, which suspended payments a year ago. Port Hotels will maintain staff and undertake reforms to reorient its services.

Original Story: Expansión – Rebeca Arroyo

Translation: Richard Turner

Merlin Finalises The Sale Of Its Hotels For €500M+

28 December 2016 – Preferente.com

Merlin, a company listed on the Ibex 35, is finalising the sale of its hotels to the French Socimi Foncière des Régions, for a figure that exceeds €500 million. Advised by CBRE, it will be the largest operation carried out by a Socimi in 2016, excluding the integration of Merlin and Metrovacesa.

The portfolio of properties contains 29 hotels operated by different chains, including the Eurostars Grand Marina in Barcelona and the NH Sanvy in Madrid (pictured above). The hotels that share buildings with offices will be left out of the transaction, such as the Eurostars Torre Castellana, which is located in the Torre PwC, and the Novotel de Barcelona, which is next to Capgemini’s headquarters. The hotels have come from corporate operations with Testa and Metrovacesa.

In 2015, Merlin acquired Testa, the real estate subsidiary of Sacyr, for more than €1,790 million. As part of that transaction, it bought 12 hotels, valued at more than €380 million at the time. As a result of the integration of the tertiary assets of Metrovacesa, a deal that was closed this year, another 12 hotels, worth €258 million, were transfered to Merlin. In total, the Socimi has 4,495 rooms, in establishments operated by Barceló, Meliá, AC Hotels, Tryp, Holiday Inn, NH Hoteles and Exe. The Carris Marineda hotel in A Coruña and the Socimi’s 30% stake in Barceló Costa Ballena in Cádiz have been left out of the transaction. Moreover, Merlin already sold off one hotel in Perpignan (France).

The hotels account for around 7% of Merlin’s asset portfolio, worth €9,300 million in total and will generate expected revenues of €450 million following the integration of Metrovacesa approved in September. The properties are home to hotels such as the NH Collection Colón, the Paseo del Arte, Exe Puerta Castilla, Eurostars Gran Madrid, and Barceló Castellana Norte, all in Madrid. In Barcelona, the portfolio includes AC Forum and Tryp Aeropuerto, amongst others. In other locations, Merlin owns the Holiday Inn and Tryp Oceanic, both in Valencia, Playa Capricho (Almería), Costa Park and Tryp Alameda (Málaga), Tryp Jerez, and Barceló Corralejo (Las Palmas).

Original story: Preferente.com

Translation: Carmel Drake

French Chain B&B Opens 4 Hotels In Spain

8 July 2016 – Expansión

The French hotel chain B&B, one of the largest in Europe with a network of 321 establishments and annual revenues of €344 million, has started to expand its business into Spain. A few months ago, it opened its first four hotels here, all of which used to be owned by the Holiday Inn, in Valencia, Madrid, Alicante and Gerona, for a total investment of €14 million. It plans to open at least four hotels a year between now and 2020, with an average investment of around €5 million per property, which represents a total investment of approximately €80 million over the period.

The next hotel opening will be in Vigo, planned for December. B&B, which was acquired by PAI Partners in December, is establishing itself under two systems: the construction of buildings and the acquisition of existing hotels. The four Spanish hotels, which used to house Holiday Inns, were acquired and then transferred to the firm Foncier des Murs, owned by the Crédit Agricole group, which is the company’s financial partner for these types of investments and which itself owns 250 hotels that B&B operates.

The hotel in Vigo will follow the same pattern; meanwhile the company is looking for other opportunities to buy and construct hotels. The Director of B&B in Spain, Dennis Darrien, explained that the company has plans to construct one hotel in Barcelona, in the 22@ district, but that those plans are on hold due to the hotel moratorium established by the Town Hall.

The company is looking for hotels with between 80 and 150 rooms, in good locations.

B&B was created in 1990, as a chain for business travellers in France – where it now has 250 hotels, some of which it owns and others which it leases – with low cost prices. The CEO of the Group, George Sampeur, explained that in Spain they will also target the tourist market, given the nature of the country.

The company has eighty hotels in Germany, twenty-three in Italy, three in Poland, one in the Czech Republic and another in Morocco. It plans to expand to Latin America by opening its first hotel in Brazil, in Sao Paulo, before continuing to Curitiba and other areas in the south of the country.

In total, according to its business plan, B&B plans to open thirty hotels a year between now and 2020.

Original story: Expansión (by J. Brines)

Translation: Carmel Drake