£900m sales relaunch as reservations dissipate

Almost £900m of hotel portfolios are expected to be relaunched for sale next year after Brexit-related uncertainty suppressed investor appetite in the sector. Sankaty Advisors and Canyon Capital are reviewing options for their QHotels business and have appointed Eastdil Secured. Rothschild, which was instructed in March 2015, is no longer advising. The portfolio is valued at £650m. Starwood Capital is also renewing its attempts to sell Project Milan. The original portfolio is a mixture of De Vere, Principal Hayley and Four Pillars hotels. Starwood bought the assets in a series of transactions between 2013 and 2014. The US private equity investor appointed Christie & Co to market the 19-asset Project Milan at the same time as QHotels was put up for sale in 2015. It almost sold 15 of the 19 properties to Hand Picked Hotels, which is run by Julia Hands, the wife of financier Guy Hands, but the deal fell through. This time around it will most likely look to sell the assets in smaller sub-portfolios, again through Christie & Co. Some assets have already been cherry picked by investors, and there are around 12 hotels left. When the portfolio was first put up for sale, it was valued at £180m. Total transaction volumes in the UK hotel market reached £8.1bn in 2015, the highest level since the £8.3bn record in 2006. Last year the regional hotel market accounted for 55.6% of all transaction volumes and portfolio transactions accounted for 59.3% of all sales, according to Savills. Market uncertainty prompted by Brexit resulted in a sharp decline in sales this year. Volumes for the first nine months of 2016 totalled just £3.1bn. However, early predictions for next year appear more positive, suggesting vendors may have more luck in trying to sell. Paul Kapiris, associate director at CBRE Hotels, said: “This year has been a turbulent one for the UK hotel investment market, with deal activity slowing following a strong 2015. “Hotels will remain a strongly performing sector in 2017 in the UK. Hotel investment will continue to be shaped by Brexit and other geopolitical events in the EU. “Hotel owners considering a transaction in 2017 should be confident that global investors still see the UK as a key destination to invest, and there will be opportunities for both sellers and buyers to capitalise.” • To send feedback, e-mail amber.rolt@estatesgazette.com or tweet @amberrolt or @estatesgazette