Mergers & Acquisitions

🏥 IHG Hotels & Resorts is set to open Bristol Berlin, Vignette Collection in 2025 in Berlin, Germany, expanding its luxury and lifestyle segment. The hotel, located on Kurfürstendamm since 1952, will feature 303 guest rooms, an all-day dining brasserie, a bar, and a spa with a swimming pool. It will offer 1,500 square meters of event space. The Vignette Collection was launched by IHG in 2021. Bristol Berlin is the second Vignette property in Germany, following a recent signing in Reit im Winkl. IHG currently manages 147 hotels in Germany, with 75 in development.

🏨 Pandox AB to acquire Pullman Cologne Hotel for €66 million, with closing set for Q2 2025. This 275-room property in Cologne, Germany, is expected to offer growth through renovations and repositioning. The anticipated initial yield is around 6.5%. The seller is Art-Invest Real Estate on behalf of an institutional hotel fund. The hotel will operate under AccorInvest post-acquisition. Pandox already owns three hotels in Cologne and recently acquired Radisson Blu Tromsø Hotel in Norway and three Residence Inn by Marriott in London.

🏦 Blackstone announced the final close of their BREDS V real estate debt fund on Friday, securing $8 billion in capital commitments. This matches the record for such investment vehicles and signals a property-market rebound, particularly in the hotel sector. The fund targets vulnerable hotel assets, betting on a commercial real estate upswing. Blackstone Real Estate Debt Strategies is capitalizing on current market conditions by buying underperforming loans and filling financing gaps where banks are reluctant to refinance. Despite pandemic impacts and rising interest rates since 2022 affecting property values, large capital availability continues to drive investments.

🏨 Dalata Hotel Group, founded in 2007, operates 56 hotels in the UK and Ireland, with expansion into Europe. The company, traded on Euronext Dublin and the London Stock Exchange, with 30 owned properties valued at €1.7 billion, reported €652 million in revenue for 2024 and €234.5 million in adjusted EBITDA. Despite this, its share price of around €5.50 values the group at €1.2 billion, which the board believes is undervalued. Options such as a sale, merger, or private equity investment are being considered, advised by Rothschild & Co. Dalata seeks to reach 21,000 rooms by 2030, an 80% expansion, with 1,600 rooms already in development. In 2024, four new Maldron hotels opened, and Dublin's RevPAR for 2025 is expected to be 2.5% higher than Q1 2024.

🏖 Westgate Resorts to acquire Vacation Ownership Sales, the exclusive partner of VI Resorts, expanding from 22 to over 60 resort destinations, including in Mexico and Canada. The acquisition will include management of a Vacation Club with more than 40 resorts and a $4 million investment in enhancing owner experience. Mike Vasey to join Westgate executive team. VI Resorts celebrates 50 years, with an owner-led board confident in growth and independence through the partnership. Collaboration follows Westgate's partnership with Choice Hotels, offering exchange opportunities for owners within Interval International.

🏨 IHG acquired the Ruby brand from Ruby SARL for €110.5m (~$116m) including the brand and intellectual property. Ruby, founded in 2013, has 20 hotels with 3,483 rooms across Europe and 10 more hotels with 2,235 rooms in the pipeline, set to open within three years. The Ruby brand aims for rapid global expansion, targeting over 120 hotels in 10 years and 250 in 20 years. The brand's net system size CAGR is 26% over the last five years. IHG paid an upfront fee of €109.9m and will pay €0.6m later, with franchise fees from the existing and pipeline hotels expected to be $8m in 2028 and more than $15m by 2030. IHG's integration of the 20 open Ruby hotels will begin in 2025 and should be completed by March 31, 2026, increasing its global system size by 0.3%, with the pipeline hotels adding another 0.2%. Integration costs for IHG are estimated at $10m in 2025, aiming for breakeven in 2026 and profitability thereafter.

🏨 Leonardo Hotels expands in Italy; acquired former Hotel dei Borgia, now Leonardo Boutique Hotel Rome Monti. NYX Hotel Rome to open in summer 2025 after renovations. Leonardo Boutique Hotel boasts 80 rooms, located near Colosseum and Fori Imperiali. Features include a breakfast area, two meeting rooms, and wellness facilities. Yoram Biton, Managing Director, highlights Italy as a key market for Leonardo Hotels Central Europe. The expansion reaffirms their investment strategy in Italy, with legal support from Tamar Cohen.

🏨 RevPAR reached a record $78 in 2024, a 14% increase over 2019. Demand surged by 232,000 room nights year-over-year, nearly recovering to 2019 levels. In 2025, room night demand for select-service and extended-stay properties is projected to hit 1.02 billion, a 16% increase above the 2001 average. GOP margins in 2020 for these hotels were 26%, 11 percentage points above full-service hotels. Between 2000 and 2024, the number of brands grew from 184 to 214, and branded hotel supply nearly doubled to 3.3 million rooms. In 2024, Oyo acquired G6 Hospitality for $525 million. The select-service and extended-stay sector attracted $62.6 billion in investments since 2021, with a 19% decrease in 2024 but still nearly half of the U.S. hotel investment volume. In 2024, the sector's average deal size was $17 million, and loan origination volume reached $18.2 billion, a 6.4% increase. The Federal Reserve began rate cuts in September 2024, which could spur a rebound in portfolio deals in 2025.