The Ritz in London reportedly has been sold to a Qatari investor for £700 million (US$871 million), ending more than a century of British ownership, according to a London Daily Mail report.
The Daily Mail said the buyer’s identity is being kept private while The Ritz is in lockdown, but pointed to Sheikh Hamad Bin-Jaber al-Thani – Qatar’s former prime minister and a business associate of the hotel’s owners, Sir Frederick and Sir David Barclay – as a bidder in the closing stages of the auction.
Sheikh Hamad, 60, was dubbed ‘the man who bought London’ while the head of Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund between 2007 and 2013, snapping up trophy assets such as Harrods. In 2015, he bought a controlling stake in the Maybourne hotel group that owns London’s Claridge’s, Berkeley and Connaught from the twins.
Macfarlanes, the London law firm that advised the Barclays on the sale, said the buyer was ‘one of its private Qatari investor clients.’
The Barclay brothers paid £75 million (US$93 million) for the hotel in 1995. It was put up for sale last October as part of a restructure of the family’s business empire, which also include the Telegraph newspapers and the Very Group retail business.
A statement from the Qatari investor said the first priority was to look after the hotel’s 450 staff while it was in lockdown. It added: ‘We look forward to reopening the hotel and to sharing our longer-term plans.’