Henderson Park Completes £500m Acquisition of London and Birmingham Hilton Metropole Hotels

Date: October 2017

Location: London & Birmingham, UK

Name: London Hilton Metropole & Birmingham Hilton Metropole

No.of keys: 1059 (London); 790 (Birmingham). Both hotels have extensive conference & banqueting space (upto 2000 people)

Seller: Tonstate, headed up by Dr Edward Wojakovski, who bought the two hotels off Hilton for £417m in October 2006. CBRE acted for Tonstate. In February 2016, they were hoping to realise £650m – £700m for the two hotels. It still holds hotels such as Travelodge & Ramada, Glasgow and Hilton Cardiff.

Buyer: Henderson Park, headed by Nick Weber, a relatively new entrant to the hotel scene, after their acquisition of Le Meridien Etoile, Paris and The Ledra, Athens in June 2017. Seven-year £330m funding was secured from Aareal Bank.

Price: £500m

Price per key: £270,416

THPT Comment: Hilton remain as brand and management. Both hotels were built and opened in 1972 by Michael Poster, under the government grant scheme (Development of Tourism Act 1969), whereby people/companies were granted £1000 per new room built between 1969 and March 1972 (£16,000 per room in today’s money) causing a seismic shift in the hotel room provision which had remained somewhat static since the World War II. Poster, at that time, also owned the Metropole (now owned by Topland) & Bedford Hotels, in Brighton.