Il Qatar compra il “Martinez “ di Cannes e altri alberghi di lusso in Francia

(Qatar pays Starwood €800m for French luxury hotels)
Qatar sovereign wealth fund Qatar Holding has acquired four French luxury hotels from US-based private equity group Starwood Capital for €700m-€800m – the Concorde Lafayette and Hôtel du Louvre in Paris, plus Martinez in Cannes and Palais de la Méditerranée in Nice through its Constellation Hotels unit, local media report.
Financial terms were not disclosed but Les Echos newspaper said €700m-€800m is being paid for the 1,700-room portfolio. French hotel operator Accor was also interested possibly in partnership with Unibail-Rodamco, but its bid was rejected, it said.
Starwood acquired the prestige hotels in 2005 as part of its $3.2bn purchase of Société Du Louvre, a conglomerate which included a hotel network now called Louvre Hotels and Groupe Taittinger, owner of champagne producer Taittinger. The sale of the four hotels and the prior divestitures of Taittinger, perfume business Annick Goutal and several other hotel properties have generated total proceeds of around $3bn, says Starwood.
The company started to look for buyers for the luxury hotels portfolio in 2011, and union officials said in June that the hotels were about to be sold to Qatari buyers. It also sold the Concorde Montparnasse hotel in Paris to Didier Ferré, founder and director of the Ferré Hotels group, for €87m in 2011, the Hotel de Crillon to Saudi investors for €250m in December 2010 and the Lutetia hotel to Israeli real estate company Alrov for €150m in August 2010.
Starwood still owns Louvre Hotels Group, which has grown from 805 hotels at acquisition to more than 1,090 hotels operating in budget chains Première Classe, Campanile, Kyriad and Golden Tulip. And it has no plans to sell this business. “We will continue to maximize the value of our remaining assets to generate attractive returns for our investor partners. In the coming years, we expect to continue our expansion and renovation of our Louvre Hotels Group portfolio,” said chairman and CEO Barry Sternlicht. Starwood also plans to grow the Baccarat crystal business internationally and to expand Baccarat’s presence in the hotel sector.
Qatar has been an active investor in French real estate in recent years. It already owns the Royal Monceau Raffles hotel in Paris and is redeveloping a former foreign ministry building into a new Peninsula hotel that will open at the end of 2013. The four hotels acquired by Qatar Holding are to be managed by Hyatt and will be rebranded accordingly in April, with the Martinez being renamed the Grand Hyatt Cannes Hotel Martinez and the Palais de la Méditerranée becoming the Hyatt Regency Nice Palais de la Méditerranée. In Paris the Concorde Lafayette will become the Hyatt Regency Paris Etoile, while the Hôtel du Louvre will undergo renovation and then be called the Andaz Paris.
Source : Property Investor Europe