Real estate investment company Aprirose has acquired the 26-hotel Q Hotels portfolio from private equity owners Bain Capital Credit and Canyon Partners for £525 million (US$704 million), marking the biggest U.K. hotel deal of the year so far.
Aprirose appointed Redefine BDL Hotels to manage the 4- and 5-star hotel portfolio. Q Hotels are spread across the United Kingdom and include the grade II-listed Midland Hotel in central Manchester, the Queens hotel in Leeds and Dunston Hall in Norwich.
Q Hotels, acquired by today’s sellers in 2014 for around £350 million (US$469 million) for the debt associated with the hotel portfolio, had been tied up in the Irish Banking Resolution Corp.’s Project Rock, a big non-performing loan portfolio which emerged out of the Irish financial crisis. The originally company fell into administration in 2013.
The portfolio may have looked more attractive as Q Hotels said earlier this year that it expected a boost to profits as a result of more people taking ‘staycations’ because of the weaker pound.
Aprirose funded the deal through their existing roster of investors, including Chinese firm Cindat Capital Management, and the deal means it now owns more than 6,000 hotel rooms.
Gary Jones, chief operating officer at Aprirose, said the firm’s strategy is to double the value of its assets. “This acquisition is part of a wider strategy and takes our portfolio to around £1.7 billion (US$2.28 billion) of assets under management,” he added.