Its announcement comes only a few months after Strabag group announced it planned to sell the Marriott Hotel and Israel’s Elbit Imaging has already signed the non-binding letter of intent to sell Radisson Blu.
“If someone offered us the right price for Novotel, we would sell it,” said Friedrich Wachernig, member of the S Immo AG board of directors.
Had someone offered the right price until now, S Immo would have sold it already. If the price is not right, it will not sell it because the revenue it generates continues to increase and is an indicator for the operations in Romania, the occupancy rate is on the rise, rates per room are going up, too, he added.
Hotels only account for 10.5% of the portfolio of the Austrian developer by value and generate only 4% of its revenue, compared with almost 39% as the retail generates. S Immo has sold a shopping center in Bulgaria to NEPI for more than EUR200 million in the past twelve months, as well as the OMV office building in Vienna.
S Immo bought Novotel in 2006, three months after French-held Accor completed construction on it, and paid EUR30 million. The hotel, which has 259 rooms, eight conference rooms, a fitness center with an indoor swimming pool and shops, was valued at EUR44.7 million in the summer of 2008 at a yield of 5.5%. If sold, the price of the hotel should be about EUR35 million to EUR40 million, according to market data. Radisson Blu’s price is EUR177.5 million (the hotel has 700 rooms), while the 400-room Marriott could sell for EUR100 million.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)