| Accor Multiplies As Dorint Divides |
| Accor became involved with Dorint Hotels in 2002 when it took a 30% stake in the German hotelier. (That stake has subsequently risen to 34%.) Such intimacy has stood the French company in good stead, as it is to take a stake of around 90% in one of two new companies that have been formed by the division of Dorint Hotels, a move that was announced this week. By means of a capital increase of €52 million, and an additional payment of €75 million to be made by the end of the first half of this year, Accor claims its stake and with it control of 52 of Dorint’s 93 hotels in Germany. Eight of these hotels were previously co-branded Dorint-Sofitel and 17 Dorint-Novotel; the Dorint prefix on all will be dropped. The remainder of the hotels have the Mercure brand. Ebertz & Partner took (for an undisclosed sum) a 100% holding in the second company that was formed; this company will operate the other 41 hotels, all of them under the Dorint brand. |
| Banimmo Is Laced Into The Dolce Chantilly | Return to Headlines |
| Banimmo Real Estate has purchased the Dolce Chantilly Hotel, Resort & Conference Destination for €45 million from Dolce/AEW LP. The 200-room property, which is located near the French capital Paris, includes 2,000 m² of meeting facilities and an 18-hole golf course. Dolce International will continue to operate the property. HVS Hodges Ward Elliott acted as adviser to Dolce/AEW LP in the transaction. | |
| City Bonus For Gruppo Statuto | Return to Headlines |
| Gruppo Statuto, a real estate investment firm from Italy, has paid £81 million for the Crowne Plaza Hotel London–The City. The vendor was Blackfriars Hotels, a company comprising InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), which held a stake of 33.3%, and two unnamed investors from the Middle East. IHG, which made net proceeds of £18 million from the sale, will continue to manage the 203-room hotel under the Crowne Plaza brand. | |
| Renova-StroiGroup Plans 50 Hotels In Russia | Return to Headlines |
| Reports from Russia suggest that Renova-StroiGroup, the construction arm of Renova Group, is ready to build 50 three-star hotels in Russia over the next ten years. All the company needs to start is a co-investor prepared to help with the necessary investment of a minimum of a reported US$1 billion. That investor might be the same company that is chosen to operate the hotels, and Renova-StroiGroup is said to be keen on hiring a leading Western chain. Each hotel will have 200 rooms and at least seven of the properties will be built in the Russian capital Moscow. | |
| The Radisson SAS Hotel, Glasgow Changes Hands Again | Return to Headlines |
| The Radisson SAS Hotel, Glasgow has a good excuse to resume its Hogmanay celebrations: Strategic Investment Management has crossed the hotel’s threshold to become the second owner of the five-star property in the space of just over a year. The Edinburgh-based property investor bought the 250-room hotel for £68 million from WG Mitchell Group, which acquired the property from Marylebone Warwick Balfour for £52.5 million in late 2005. The hotel will continue to operate under the Radisson SAS brand. | |
| Accor Opens Two Hotels Near Barcelona | Return to Headlines |
| The town of Viladecans lies in the shadow of the city of Barcelona, but Accor has given the town the chance to have its moment in the sun. The company increased its portfolio of economy hotels in the Catalonia region of northeastern Spain to nine (a total of 890 rooms) by opening the 102-room Ibis Barcelona Viladecans and the 99-room Etap Barcelona Viladecans. | |
| Bawadi Will Lay On An Ottoman | Return to Headlines |
| The latest hotel at the Bawadi mixed-use development to be named is the Ottoman Palace Hotel and Resort. Golden Leaves Hotels and Resorts will take charge of the 600-room property, which will be one of 31 themed luxury hotels at the development, which is being overseen by Tatweer, by the time all work on the US$27 billion project in the emirate of Dubai is finished in 2014. | |
| How's This? Arora To Build A Hotel At The Brit Oval | Return to Headlines |
| A ripple of light applause went round the Brit Oval this week to greet the arrival in the middle of the home of Surrey County Cricket Club of Arora International Hotels. But Arora had not come to open the batting; rather it hopes to open a four-star hotel at the South London ground in the summer of 2009. The property would come in from the Pavilion end as part of improvement works at the ground costing a reported £40 million. | |
| Whitbread Says TGI Sold | Return to Headlines |
| The second half of Whitbread’s financial year opened with the company in formal discussions about the sale of its restaurant business TGI Friday’s. Four months into the half, Whitbread has announced that the business, which has 45 outlets in the UK, has found buyers and will be sold for a total price of £70.4 million. The company expects the sale to complete in March. British Land is to pay £48.37 million for the property interest in 15 of the restaurants, with the remainder of the restaurants and the operating business passing to TGI Friday’s UK, a joint venture set up by Carlson Restaurants Worldwide and ABN Amro Capital. The joint venture will also take a 25-year lease on each of British Land’s properties. | |
| Lancashire Hot Spot For Sales | Return to Headlines |
| Parklake Hotels and Teesland Development Fund have formed a joint venture to acquire from Accor, for an undisclosed sum, the 100-room Novotel Preston. The hotel, which stands in the county of Lancashire in northwest England, will be extensively refurbished and, thus refreshed, will resume life as a Ramada hotel. Lancashire was the setting too for the departure of Shire Hotels from the Oaks Hotel, the company having sold the 51-room property to regional operator Stefan Sikorski for an undisclosed sum. The hotel, which stands in Reedley, near Burnley, had an asking price of £3 million. | |
| Accor Reports Its Full-Year Revenue | Return to Headlines |
| Accor earned revenue of €7.6 billion in the year to 31 December 2006, a like-for-like increase on the previous year of 6.7%. Revenue growth of 7.8% (like for like) in the fourth quarter, a rate that bettered anything seen in the previous three quarters, was underpinned by accelerated growth in Accor’s hotel business in France. The company promptly raised its estimate of full-year pre-tax operating profit to €700 million-€720 million (previously €680 million-€700 million). The RevPAR table was topped by the collected upscale and midscale hotels in Europe with their increase of 8.7% (to €64). | |
| Papas's Got A Brand-New Badge | Return to Headlines |
| Peter Papadimitropoulos will become the chief executive of Millennium & Copthorne on 1 March. Mr Papas, as he is more conveniently known, was managing director of Aquila Growth until January 2005 and for the last seven years he has been a non-executive director of Peermont Global. Mr Papas succeeds Tony Potter, who announced last July that he was stepping down. Mr Potter subsequently joined Corinthia Hotels International. | |
Absolute Share Price Performance Over the Past Week 11/01/07-18/01/07
InterContinental Hotels Group - Bid speculation kept the share price buoyant.
Accor - Jefferies International reiterated its 'Buy' rating and gave a target price of €70, as Accor's full-year revenue met with the analyst's expectations.
Whitbread - The share price fell on profit-taking after the company's sale of TGI Friday's.
