PPHE Buys Historic Four-Star Hotel Londra & Cargill, Rome – Their First in Italy For €34.5m
Main Photo: The Hotel Londra & Cargill
Date: November 2021
Name: Hotel Londra & Cargill
Location: 400 meters from Via Veneto, a walk away from the Spanish Steps and public transport at Termini Station
Number of Keys: 101
Seller: Members of the De Romanis family
Buyer: PPHE – Park Plaza Hotels Europe, headed up by President & CEO, Boris Ivesha
PPHE Hotel Group, the international hospitality real estate group which develops, owns and operates hotels and resorts, is pleased to announce that the Group, via its wholly owned subsidiary Londra Cargill Parent S.r.l, has completed the acquisition of the 4-star Londra & Cargill Hotel in a prime central location in the city of Rome. The acquisition marks the Group’s entry into the Italian market. Rome is a strategic target for the Group as it is one of southern Europe’s key gateway capital cities that offers robust fundamentals for hotel investment over the medium to long term.
On completion of the transaction, hotel operations will continue whilst the Group finalises its plans to reposition the property to an upper upscale lifestyle hotel. The hotel is expected to be relaunched in early 2023.
The Londra & Cargill Hotel is steeped in history dating back to the early 1900’s and is located in central Rome just minutes from Via Vittorio Veneto, one of Rome’s most elegant and famous streets, a short walk from Piazza di Spagna and the Spanish Steps, Villa Borghese Gardens and Rome’s central station. The hotel currently offers 101 rooms and suites, a restaurant, bar, meeting facilities and private parking.
When the English Anna Maria Babington and the New Zealand Isabel Cargill arrived in Rome in 1893 they invested their £100 in opening a tea rooms on the Via dei Due Macelli, close to the piazza. Obviously it was a resounding success, as it provided the comforts of home for the weary tourist, and the next year they relocated to the building on the left side of the steps.
In 1910 Annie Cargill the sister of Isabel, arrived in Rome and opened the Hotel Londra & Cargill on the corner of Via Collina and the Piazza Sallustio. The hotel is a large building dating from the 1800s. Unfortunately the tea room business was effected by the outbreak of the first world war and this continued into the 1920s. Anna Maria moved to Switzerland due to ill health and died of a heart attack. Isabel’s daughter Dorothy, from her marriage to the Italian artist Giuseppe da Pozzo, took over the management of the tea rooms. Annie invested money in the tea rooms, they were refurbished and business started to pick up again. Throughout the second world war the family left Rome, when they returned after the war they found out that the staff had kept the tea rooms open using their own rations. This family run business is still as successful as ever, and has built up a worldwide following through its website and sales of its merchandise.
The transaction has been structured as a share sale of the company which owns the freehold hotel and its operations, from certain members of the De Romanis family, for a purchase price of €34.5 million (approximately £29.7 million), on a cash free and debt free basis, subject to working capital and other customary price adjustments, which resulted in €33.2 million payable by the Group on completion. The loss for the year ended 31 December 2020 was €0.5 million.
The acquisition has been funded from the Group’s excess cash position which will be partly refinanced with external bank debt in due course. The transaction constitutes a Class 2 transaction for the purposes of the UK Financial Conduct Authority’s Listing Rules, and, as such does not require PPHE shareholders’ approval.
Boris Ivesha, President & CEO of PPHE Hotel Group, comments: “We are thrilled to acquire this hotel in the centre of Rome, which will mark our entry into the Italian
market and adds another key capital city to our growing portfolio of hotels. Our plans to reposition the property to an upper upscale lifestyle hotel will further bolster our development pipeline which already features iconic, premium projects across cities including art’otel London Battersea Power Station and art’otel london Hoxton.
“This latest acquisition further supports the Group’s long term growth strategy as it continues to build its presence in new markets.
Price: €34.5m
Price per Key: €341,584
THPT Comment: Fab buy for this historic hotel, right in the centre of the action at a good price…no doubt PPHE will restore this small Grand Dame hotel to it’s former glory
First Seen: PPHE press release
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