News & Stories

London. Capitalization rates for fixed income prime hotel investments such as lease contracts have reached sub 5%, according to a report from property experts HVS Hodges Ward Elliott.

Paris/Munich. To get an AccorHotels manager to an appointment of late is difficult: The gigantic Booster Project has all employees very busy – also because many questions are still open. All the better it was then to meet Andrea Agrusow last week for an interview in the Novotel Airport Munich. The new COO of AccorInvest Central Europe is also Chairman of the Board of AccorInvest Germany – and thus one of the first new faces in the newly structured Accor world. At her side are: Michael Verhoff, Managing Director of Human Resources at AccorInvest. His presence too had its reason. As of 1 July 2017, AccorInvest has been under the umbrella of Accor S.A and is now responsible for real estate, lease and tenancies – and is thus, as of immediately, strictly separate from AccorHotels. The latter is now "a mere" management contract partner of AccorInvest.

Munich/Frankfurt. 13 hotels in Germany and the Netherlands now have a new owner: They have been acquired from various funds, managed by subsidiaries of Apollo Global Management, for a total of three mandates by Invesco. The operator is Event.

Berlin. For a long time, the hotel business was a "closed shop", especially for investors. Now, a new hotel lease data base is to provide more transparency in Germany.

Rome. L'Agenzia del Demanio, the Italian state property office, in cooperation with the Ministry of Defence has just assigned fifteen buildings included in the second wave of the "Valore Paese Fari" project, which started with the renting of lighthouses. Renting coastal towers or lighthouses to private investors from Italy and outside seems to have become a beneficial project for the state treasury, for tourism and the investors. The agency will call for more tenders in future, namely for about 100 new assets per year.

Berlin. With its mini-hotels in German lighthouses, the Berlin-based company Floatel has been very successful: The first three are 100% booked out for all of the next two years. Now, Floatel is expanding to Spain and Italy. There, the company has won tenders for concessions for three lighthouses in Venice, Apulia and on the island of Ischia. Managing Director Tim Wittenbecher on the challenges of converting lighthouses, including the need for an anti-mafia certificate in Italy.

Paris. The French real estate group Quartus is entering the hospitality world at full speed. The company is specialized in retirement homes, residential and industrial buildings. Quartus is springing into action outside its core business – just like AccorHotels is doing by partnering with the French industrial group Bouygues' Nextdoor subsidiary. It focuses on co-working spaces.

Frankfurt. Despite the comparably weak result in the second quarter, the transaction volume in the German hotel property market added up to 1.79 billion euros in the first half of the year. However, the development has slowed down for the most part.

Wiesbaden. The real estate boom in Germany is increasingly bringing C locations into the investor focus – for lack of A and B location alternatives. Yet there is disagreement even about what counts as a C location. And operating hotels in such locations is not a job for anyone. To make a success of it, special concepts and specialist operators are required. Local knowledge, local capital and local franchisees can have a positive impact here. Alongside classic hotels, Serviced Apartments can also work in C locations. The assessment of the hotel experts.

Frankfurt. In the first quarter 2017, the volume in the European investment market decreased, even Great Britain reports a slight minus caused by Brexit. In France, the drop has been extreme. In southern Europe, the markets increased. The undisputed top dog is Germany.