Singapore investor buys Earls Court Enterprise Hotel
The company, a joint venture between Singapore investors Heeton Holdings and Ryobi Kiso Holdings, purchased the hotel in an off-market deal.
Chatteris is planning to totally refurbish the 100-bedroom property, transforming basement and office space into an additional twenty bedrooms and bringing the whole property up-to-date with the demands of the modern traveller.
Chris Nelson, director at Equity Growth Partners, which advised on the purchase, said: “We had been on the lookout for a while for a suitable London hotel property and the Enterprise ticked all the boxes.
“Following refurbishment it will augment Heeton’s existing residential portfolio in London and complement their other hotel operations in Thailand and Singapore.”
Danny Low, chief operating officer at Heeton, which owns 80 per cent of Chatteris, said: “This acquisition will strengthen our hospitality portfolio, bringing the total number of hotel rooms in our group to about 365.
“The Group believes that the hospitality sector presents the best mid to long-term opportunity for growth as demand for travel accommodation continues to outstrip available accommodation in popular gateway cities throughout the world.”
High demand for London hotels
Colin Hall, head of London Hotels Agency at Colliers International, which handled the sale, said that the hotel had generated 'huge interest' from a number of international buyers, reflecting a wider demand for central London properties.
“The fundamental reason is that there are so few hotels of consequence that can be bought in London at the moment,” he told BigHospitality.
“There is just massive demand, everyone from all over the world wants to own a London hotel, they can see it is a safe haven to invest because the London hotel business is good business, and there are good prospects for capital appreciation.
“For all those reasons, people don’t want to sell them. They would rather leave their money tied up in a London hotel than anywhere else. So there is a mismatch there.”
Hall added that demand from Far Eastern buyers, who have access to cheaper funding, is particularly strong, although there appears to be worldwide demand for London hotels.
“Every week I meet buyers around the world who want a London hotel, and it has to be central London, you can offer them the best deal three miles out of the centre and they are not interested. Zone one is where they want to be,” he explained.
Although Hall believes that London transactions could be lower this year than last year due to the lack of available properties, he predicts that transactions that do go ahead will be at prices 10-20 per cent ahead of this time last year.
