Brookfield Asset Management is reportedly acquiring the European arm of Generator, a collection of hostel/hotel hybrid accommodations, for €780 million from Queensgate Investments. The deal, reported first by the Financial Times, does not include the U.S. properties Generator operates in Miami, New York and Washington, D.C.; nor does it include Generator’s sister brand, Freehand Hotels, which is also owned by Queensgate.
Generator operates 13 properties in Europe, including two in Berlin, and other cities such as London, Paris, Rome and Madrid.
Patron sold Generator to Queensgate in 2017 for €450 million. In 2019, Queensgate acquired Freehand Hotels for a reported $400 million. It, and its four hotels, all in the U.S., in New York, Miami, Los Angeles and Chicago, sit a slot above Generator on the chain scale.
In 2020, it was initially rumored that Queensgate was looking for an offramp in its investment in Generator and Freehand, but the COVID pandemic thwarted the effort. In 2022, a sale valued at as much as $1.2 billion resurfaced, with Queensgate calling for bids and private equity firms mentioned as potential suitors.
In an interesting twist, then CEO of Generator and Freehand, Alastair Thomann, left the company in Janaury 2025 to take over the top leadership position at UK-based edyn, which is also owned by Brookfield and offers an array of accommodations from aparthotels to serviced apartments.
Though hospitality deals and total M&A across Europe has struggled in the wake of COVID and attendant higher interest rates, Brookfield has been accretive of late. At an industry conference in March, Shai Zelering, Brookfield’s managing partner of real estate, said it would be a net buyer in 2025. “We are optimistic that the deal market will pick up,” he said, noting that Brookfield looked at around $6 billion in assets last year and pulled the trigger on $800 million of it, about half of what it initially planned to deploy.
According to HVS, after two years of reduced activity, 2024 marked a turning point for hotel investment in Europe, with transaction volume surging 62% year-on-year to reach €17.4 billion, which was the highest level recorded since 2019. Private equity investors were the most active, buying and selling nearly €8.6 billion in assets, which represented a 315% increase over 2023.
Interest has jumped in the hostel/hotel hybrid accommodation space. An example is TPG’s 2023 sale of the 40-property a&o Hotels and Hostels for €800 million to private investment firms StepStone and Proprium. Another chain, Meininger Hotels, has been rumored for sale by owner Cox & Kings since 2019.
Brookfield Asset Management has more than $1 trillion of assets under management. It raised $25 billion in the first quarter of 2025, which included $7.1 billion of capital in real estate.
