HVS EMEA Hospitality Enews - Week Ending 24 July 2009
Deka Gets In First | Heythrop Park Beautifies Itself For Crowne Plaza | Milton Keynes Dons The Doubletree Strip | Quality On The Streets Of Maida Vale | Cars Give Way To Hotel In Chelmsford | Kiessling's Corner | Rezidor Reports Its Half-Year Results | The Allure Of The International Hotel Conference
Deka Gets In First | Deka Immobilien has journeyed north from Germany to acquire a hotel in southwestern Sweden. Journey’s end was the central railway station in Gothenburg, above which sits the 300-room First Hotel G: just the ticket for Deka’s open-ended property fund WestInvest ImmoValue. The sale and leaseback deal with Norwegian hotel company Host Hoteleiendom was done for around €41 million. One report states that the book value of the hotel is roughly €23 million.
Heythrop Park Beautifies Itself For Crowne Plaza | Redevelopment work is under way at the Heythrop Park Resort and it will end in October 2010 with 116 rooms fully refurbished and the eighteenth-century house enlarged by 81 rooms. Firoka Group, which bought the property and its 440 acres in 2000, is carrying out the work so that the hotel can reopen in the fourth quarter of 2010 under the Crowne Plaza brand. Three of Firoka Group’s five other hotels already carry the brands of InterContinental Hotels Group. Firoka is being supported in its plans for Heythrop Park, which is near Chipping Norton, in Oxfordshire, by Royal Bank of Scotland, which put together a funding package worth £20 million.
Milton Keynes Dons The Doubletree Strip | Hilton Hotels Corporation has signed a franchise agreement with Hotel MK that will bring to seven the number of Doubletree by Hilton hotels in the UK. Holding up the number seven is football club Milton Keynes Dons, which will see the debut of the 127-room Doubletree by Hilton Milton Keynes at its home ground Stadium MK before the year is out. The hotel was funded by Clydesdale Bank.
Quality On The Streets Of Maida Vale | To Maida Vale is probably due the title of this week’s most happening London suburb. For it is over in northwest London that Choice Hotels Europe has been busy opening the Quality Hotel Maitrise. The 50-room boutique hotel became the forty-seventh in the UK to take a Choice brand after Choice Hotels Europe signed a direct franchise agreement with entrepreneur Raja Adil.
Cars Give Way To Hotel In Chelmsford | Hawkstone Properties is reported to have submitted plans to build a hotel in Chelmsford, in Essex. The company from the West Midlands recently acquired an office block known as M&G House, which stands opposite Chelmsford railway station, and it wants to fill the office car park with a 150-room mid-market hotel. Hawkstone is said to be talking to hotel operators.
Kiessling's Corner | The municipality of Madrid has agreed to use the historic Casa de la Carniceria in Plaza Mayor, Madrid, as a hotel. The objective is to promote Madrid as a tourist destination for 2016. Meanwhile, Fuerte Hoteles is to manage the four-star vacation complex Fuerte Estepona in Málaga. The complex, which has 212 apartments, is expected to open at the beginning of 2010 and it will be managed under the brand Fuerte Destinos, Vacation Club. By Gabriele Kiessling, Analyst, HVS Madrid
Rezidor Reports Its Half-Year Results | President and chief executive Kurt Ritter said: “Visibility is still very limited”. But the effect that the global recession has had on his company Rezidor Hotel Group’s results is all too clear to see. In the six months to June 2009, Rezidor recorded a post-tax loss of €21.6 million, compared to a profit of €14.7 million in the comparable period of the year before. Revenue fell 18.3%, to €325.8 million, and marketwide like-for-like RevPAR was down 18.8%, at €62.3.
The Allure Of The International Hotel Conference | There are many ways to fall in love with the International Hotel Conference: its attractive single-room rate of €315 (save €50 a night on bookings made before 31 August); its perky shuttle boat service that will whisk you from Venice airport through the waterlogged streets to the Hilton Molino Stucky, the venue for the conference from 21 to 23 October. Once at the hotel you will fall in love again, this time a hundred times over, as you set eyes on the array of top speaking talent before you. It is not necessarily their looks that will win you over (although it must be said that HVS is fielding three cuties in Russell Kett, Tim Smith and Gabi Baumann), but their minds: minds chockfull with all that is worth knowing about hospitality. Start a romance you won't regret by visiting
- NH Hoteles - The company announced that it had secured a debt waiver on a €650 million syndicated loan that was signed in 2007.
- InterContinental Hotels Group - At the end of last week Evolution reiterated its 'Reduce' rating and kept its target price at 475p, saying that it was too early to invest in hotels.
- Accor - Merrill Lynch kept its 'Underperform' rating and lowered its target price from €28 to €24.
Charles Human, MD Investment Services at
Dominique Bourdais, Director at
Christopher Mumford, MD Executive Search at
Laurent de Kousemaeker, Director at