Irea: Investors Spent €184M On 8 Hotels In Málaga In 2016

16 January 2017 – Málaga Hoy

Investors have set their sights on Málaga and are placing a special emphasis on the hotel sector, in light of the visitor and occupancy rate data being registered month after month there, both in the capital as well as along the rest of the Costa del Sol, with the consequent yields that they are generating.

These investors, which include domestic and international companies and funds spent €184 million on eight major hotel operations in the province last year, according to comments made on Thursday by Gonzalo Gutiérrez, Analyst in the Hotels Department at the consultancy firm Irea, in his presentation in Madrid of the Overview of the Hotel Investment Market in Spain in 2016. This amount is less than the €223 million registered in 2015, but Gutiérrez highlighted that all investment records were broken in Spain during 2015, which means that the volume recorded in 2016 “was very good”.

To calculate these figures, Irea includes the sale and purchase of hotels that already exist, as well as of buildings and land that are acquired for conversion into hotels. However, it does not include amounts relating to possible renovations performed at each establishment or for each project. Of the eight operations completed in the province in 2016, six involved the purchase of hotels already in operation and two involved the conversion into hotels of buildings that were previously used for other purposes.

Málaga capital accounted for half of those projects. The Hotel Tryp Málaga Alameda changed hands for the second time in less than a year. Merlin Properties, which recently purchased a portfolio containing several hotels in Spain, including the Malagan establishment, from Testa, sold the same package of hotels to the French investment fund Fonciére des Murs on 30 December, and communicated the sale officially on 2 January. Merlin sold 19 hotels in Spain to the French fund for €535 million. Gutiérrez also said that another hotel was sold in the capital but that he was unable to reveal the name or the amount paid for confidentiality reasons. Also in Málaga capital, the German group Activum purchased the Palacio del Marqués de la Sonora on Calle Granada to convert it into a hotel and another group acquired the building at number 10 on Calle Larios for the same purpose.

In the rest of the province, there were four other major hotel operations in 2016. The most talked about was the sale of the Hotel Byblos in Mijas, which was acquired by the Madrilenian group Ayco for €60 million. The plan is to renovate the property, open it again and restore the luxury tourism market that it used to serve decades ago. The Incosol, another iconic establishment, which had filed for bankruptcy, was acquired by a company owned by Banco Sabadell called HI Partners, for €20 million. Meanwhile, a domestic group purchased Hotel Las Palomas in Torremolinos; and Hotel Costa Park in Torremolinos, which has 388 rooms, was included in the package that Merlin sold to the French group.

Gutiérrez forecasts that 2017 will be positive given that “the Vincci Estrella del Mar was sold for more than €20 million and that other operations are being analysed, which will be closed this year”. The expert noted that Málaga is the fifth most attractive destination for hotel investors after Madrid, Barcelona, the Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands.

Original story: Málaga Hoy (by Ángel Recio)

Transltion: Carmel Drake