Tag: Orizonia

Grupo Barceló’s Profits Rose By 25% To €125M In 2016

28 April 2017 – Expansión

Grupo Barceló earned €125 million in 2016, which represented an increase of 25% compared to the previous year. Moreover, the hotel group expects to record a net profit of €150 million this year thanks to improvements in management and investments undertaken. The company obtained a gross operating profit (EBITDA) of €338.6 million in 2016, up by 12% and spent more than €140 million improving its hotel stock, of which €110 million was invested in a dozen establishments in Latin America, according to its annual report.

Grupo Barceló closed 2016 with turnover of €2,855 million, up by 15.1%, and net sales of €1,979.7 million (+23.7%), having managed to reduce its net financial debt by 8.3% to €495 million. At the next General Shareholders’ Meeting, which will be held on 2 June, the Board of Directors will propose the distribution of a dividend amounting to €12.5 million. Last July, the firm distributed a dividend amounting to €10 million, which was charged against the results for 2015.

Forecasts

Looking ahead to this year, the company expects to generate EBITDA of almost €388 million. “This year, we expect to see improvements in all of the countries in which we have a presence. The data for the first few months of 2017 show an improving trend in terms of occupancy rates, tariffs and RevPar (average revenue per available room).

Moreover, Barceló underlined that the soundness of its balance sheet will allow it to have access to “interesting” investment projects and to continue growing across all of its divisions. The company currently has 229 hotels in 21 countries, with almost 50,500 rooms, including 112 hotels from the US manager Crestline, which it consolidates 100% after purchasing the 60% stake that it did not control from AR Global in April last year. Overall, the group owns 39 of its hotels, leases 57 of them and manages the remaining 133.

In addition, the firm stated that in January, the Mercantile Court of Palma dismissed the claim against Barceló filed by the bankruptcy administration of Orizonia, which amounted to €59.6 million. In a letter, the Co-Presidents, Simón Barceló Tous and Simón Pedro Barceló highlighted the “record” results obtained both in terms of EBITDA and net profit, with double-digit growth in both parameters as well as in turnover, all as a result of its ordinary activity.

Original story: Expansión (by Rebeca Arroyo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Cinven Offers €1,300M To Outbid EQT In Auction For Hotelbeds

27 April 2016 – Expansión

The private equity firm Cinven, which has invested heavily in Spain over the last two years, may take a leap forward if its bid for the Hotelbeds group goes ahead. TUI AG put the company up for sale at the end of 2015.

Sources close to the sales process indicate that Cinven has put an offer on the table, which values the tourism company at €1,300 million. The Nordic fund EQT is also participating in the bidding and sources do not rule out the possibility of other interested groups participating in what now seems to be the final stretch of the sales process of the Hotelbeds Group.

The company, a subsidiary of the Germany group TUI AG, works with 75,000 hotels all over the world and offers rooms to tour operators and travel agents around the globe. Hotelbeds, which receives more than 25 million hotel bookings per year, is one of the companies that emerged from the tourism sector thanks to new technologies and it has high growth projections.

Entry into the hotel segment

This would be Cinven’s first major foray into the hotel segment, but it would represent a return to the tourism business. Cinven, a fund headquartered in London, was created in 1977; it went on to acquire Amadeus in 2005, together with BC Partners.

The tourism sector’s technology provider, which was acquired from the major European airlines, was then delisted. In 2010, Cinven and BC Partners returned the company to the stock exchange and sold their shares.

Since its creation, Cinven has made acquisitions amounting to more than €70,000 million, specialising, above all, in investments with a significant technological component and always with holdings that exceed €100 million. (…).

Meanwhile, Hotelbeds has been on the market since last Autumn. Financial sources valued it at around €1,000 million. TUI had hoped to complete the sales process during the first three or four months of the year, and so a final agreement could be very close. Nevertheless, the emergence of the fund EQT in the process will intensify the Hotelbed operation.

Similarly, financial sources do not rule out that other funds may be preparing their own competitive offers.

Diversified portfolio

EQT, of Swedish origin, has assets under management of €29,000 million and its investment portfolio is very varied. In Spain, it holds stakes in two companies, Islalink and Parkia, which operate in the telecommunications and car park sectors, respectively.

EQT opened an office in Madrid in the middle of last year with the aim of looking for new investments in the Spanish and Portuguese markets. The fund hired a specialist team led by Fernando Conte, the former Chairman of Iberia and the tourism group Orizonia.

At the beginning of February, EQT bought the Swiss tourism group Kuoni for more than €1,100 million and, according to sources in the sector, it plans to integrate that business with the Hotelbeds Group.

For TUI AG, the sale of this company will mean saying goodbye to the online sector to focus on its traditional businesses: hotels and cruises. During the year to 30 September 2015, TUI AG generated revenues of more than €20,000 million, with an EBITDA of €1,069 million, up by almost 23%. Its shares closed at €13.09 on the stock exchange yesterday, up by 0.47%.

Original story: Expansión (by M.Á.Patiño and Y.Blanco)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Iberostar Refinances Its Debt & Releases Guarantees

11 December 2015 – Expansión

New financing conditions / The hotel group owned by the Fluxà family is restructuring its debt and postponing its repayments until 2021. Its profits remained stable in 2014.

Iberostar is refinancing its debt for the second time in less than three years. In April this year, the hotel group controlled by the Fluxà family restructured the majority of its financial liabilities, according to the 2014 annual accounts of the parent company, Iberostar Hoteles and Apartamentos, filed with the Mercantile Registry. At the end of last year, the group’s short and long-term debt amounted to more than €400 million – most of which was held with financial institutions – and the liabilities between the group’s companies amounted to €533 million.

The agreement establishes a new timetable, which runs until 2021 – three extra years – and reduces the guarantees provided by Iberostar. Under the previous refinancing agreement, completed in 2012 and amounting to €768 million, the hotel chain offered a personal guarantee against the obligations of a €285 million loan, as well as mortgage guarantees over Spanish assets and the pledge of its 5% stake in ACS.

Percentage in ACS

The Fluxà family is the shareholder of the construction group that has been chaired by Florentino Pérez since 2006, when Iberstar sold its tourism division to Carlyle and Vista Capital for around €900 million to focus on the hotel sector. The private equity companies created Orizonia – which no longer exists as it filed for bankruptcy in April 2013 – and the Fluxà family invested almost all of the resources obtained on the purchase of ACS.

Iberostar paid €46.82 for each share – €826 million in total. Yesterday, ACS closed trading with a share price of €28.49, representing an increase of 2.76% during the session. In 2012, Iberostar was forced to recognise an impairment on its shareholding amounting to €147.12 million, which meant that the company recorded losses that year. At the end of 2014, the company recognised its shareholding in ACS at €36.41 per share and set its recoverable value at €40 per share. Despite this difference, Iberostar has not reversed the impairment recorded in previous years.

Iberostar is represented on the board of ACS by Sabina Fluxà, the Executive Co-Vice-President and CEO of the hotel chain, and it received dividends amounting to €20.34 million on its shareholding.

In 2014, the parent company’s turnover amounted to €43.47 million, down by 6.36%. The operating result decreased by 76.4% to €7.97 million, due to a reduction in other operating income and an impairment for the transfer of tangible assets and financial instruments. Iberostar expects to improve that figure this year, by maintaining stable turnover and cutting down its expenses. Nevertheless, the net result remained stable – at around €15.7 million – due to the positive effect of the lower tax charge on its profits.

As a whole, Iberostar and its subsidiaries invoiced €1,435 million in 2014, up by 29.6%, to place it in fourth position by turnover, surpassed only by Grupo Barceló – which also includes its tourism business – , RUI and Meliá.

Dividends

In 2014, the parent company allocated its profits to offset its negative results from previous years, but it distributed €55.7 million in dividends distributed against reserves. Moreover, it repaid debt amounting to €18.78 million owing to the Tax Authorities for Corporation Tax for the years 2007 and 2008.

Meanwhile, Iberostar has the option to purchase an additional 29.15% stake in Royal Cupido, in which it already holds a 29.5% shareholding, for €44.54 million. Pontegadea, the investment arm of Amancio Ortega, controls 45.5% of Royal, which owns five hotels in Spain and earned €3.43 million in 2014.

Original story: Expansión (by Yovanna Blanco)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Alchemy & Former Orizonia Director Create Hotel Group

5 October 2015 – Expansión

A new player has emerged in the Spanish hotel sector: Feel Hotels Group. The project has promoted by the fund Alchemy Special Opportunities and Javier Águila, the former Director of Orizonia, has just closed its first operation: the purchase of six hotels in Mallorca and Ibiza. This batch of assets, which belonged to Marina Hotels until now, comprises 1,200 rooms.

The acquisition, for an undisclosed sum, represents this hotel group’s debut in the market. Alchemy is the majority shareholder of the company, in which Águila also holds a stake. Águila is the CEO and leads a team with extensive experience in Spanish hotel chains, including Iberostar, Luabay and Bahía Principe, amongst others. Meanwhile, Alchemy, which has invested around €4,000 million (in various initiatives) since its launch in 1997, has been analysing opportunities in the hotel sector in Spain for a while; it has already invested in this sector in the past in the UK.

Four star properties

Feel Hotels Group will take over the management of the hotels from the beginning of 2016 and will invest €15 million modernising the facilities. The refurbishment of the six 3-star and 4-star properties, will be undertaken in 2016.

The chain will focus on the sun and beach segment and on 4-star hotels, although it does not rule out the possibility of acquiring a few lower grade or luxury establishments. Initially, it is targeting the main tourist areas in Spain, including the Canary and Balearic Islands, as well as the mainland coast and the south of Portugal. In the medium term, when Feel Hotels Group has secured a critical mass, it will expand its focus overseas.

The group’s route-map envisages that it will build up a portfolio of between 20 and 25 properties over the next four years, through the purchase of more hotels and also, by securing lease and management contracts. If these figures materialise, and depending on the size of the properties, Feel Hotels Group can expect to generate revenues of around €100 million.

Brand

The commercial launch of the chain is scheduled for early next year. However, the name of the company itself, Alchemy, is being used for the time being. The management team has not yet decided whether it will use Feel Hotels Group as the brand of the hotel chain.

Interest from international funds and investors in taking positions in the holiday hotel sector has intensified in recent months. At the end of April, Brussels authorised the partnership between Meliá and Starwood Capital, whereby the fund acquired 80% of seven hotels in the Canary Islands, Balearic Islands and Costa del Sol, with almost 3,000 rooms, for €176 million. Meliá will continue managing these establishments.

Meanwhile, Barceló sold the Hotel Barceló Santiago (Tenerife) to the Chinese group Chongqing Kangde Industrial, with whom it had been negotiating since 2013, for €50 million. In parallel, Barceló created the first hotel-only Socimi, with 16 holiday establishments.

Original story: Expansión (by Yovanna Blanco)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Barceló Doubled Its Profit In 2014 To Generate c. €50m

12 February 2015 – Expansión

Barceló recorded a profit of c. €50 million in 2014, whereby doubling its result from the previous year. The co-chairman of the hotel chain, Simón Pedro Barceló announced the result yesterday (the group’s definitive results for the year are still pending) and attributed the increase to “a significant increase in EBITDA (from €183 million to €215 million) and the incorporation of ten new hotels in Mexico and the Dominican Republic. Moreover, 2014 was the first full year to include the results of its new travel division.

Turnover exceeded €2,000 million, of which €1,100 million was generated by the travel sector and €900 million from hotels. The total figure amounted to €1,800 million in 2013. The co-chairman of Barceló said that it is too soon to say how the tourism sector will evolve over the course of the year, but he noted that “the Caribbean and Mexico have had a strong start to the year and although we do not know what will happen during the summer months, we believe that we will outperform the results recorded in 2014 by 10%”.

According to the latest information released by the Mallorcan company, Barceló has 140 hotels in 17 countries containing 37,380 rooms. Half of them are located in Europe and the remainder are in America, primarily in the US and the Caribbean. It also has 400 travel agencies operating in 22 countries.

New acquisitions

The group, which returned to the travel agency segment last year through its acquisition of Orizonia, together with Globalia, has not ruled out growth through further acquisitions. Yesterday, Simon Pedro Barceló confirmed that “new corporate transactions have not been ruled out” in the travel agency sector.

The family business owns 39% of its hotels outright, and leases or manages the remainder. Its goal is to be “a great hotel company”, said Barceló yesterday, which is why the company is continually adding new hotels to its portfolio. “We have just signed an agreement to lease a new 4 star hotel with 250 rooms in Berlin”, he said.

Barceló, who was giving a lecture at ESADE, was very optimistic about the future of the economy and the tourism sector in particular and encouraged employers to work together with entities that are independent and able.

Original story: Expansión (by Marisa Ángeles)

Translation: Carmel Drake