The wind is blowing in favour of the Spanish hotel market with more than a billion of closed operations in 2015. New potential buyers such as new SOCIMIs, international investors, domestic ‘family offices’ and clean hotel chains will be joining this market in 2016.
The hotel market expects a boom to new SOCIMIs. These REITs may serve to channel in an organized manner the different hotel investment, which until now seemed focus on only large real estate groups or funds and not for small investors. The SOCIMIs have to be listed on the stock Exchange, which opens the door to all investors.
The diverse type and origin of buyers was one of the main novelties of the hotel investment market last year. In 2015, they appeared a large number of new players so far were not present in the hotel investment market. On one hand, the investment funds focussed on real estate and hotel sector. On the other hand, the role of the hotel investment is concerned, not only by the number of transactions and the amount invested, but also for the hotel locations and categories as they have provided liquidity in the different market segments which have recorded little activity in recent years.
In the case of the BlueBay Group and Le Royal Hotels & Resorts, when two medium-sized companies join together, it becomes a large Hotel Group with duplicate forces to start a new career within the international market. The Bluebay Group is a group of mid-level fastest growing hotel chains in recent years. On the other hand, Le Royal Hotels & Resorts is an established company with over 40 years within the investment industry and hotel business. Both groups complement each other perfectly and the intention of this union is to grow internationally to become one of the worldwide chains’ references with an innovative and strategic expansion plan.
