German asset manager DekaBank has emerged as the preferred bidder for the former Burlington Hotel in Dublin, according to sources. Blackstone Group put the hotel up for sale earlier this year with a price tag of €180 million.
Blackstone, the world’s biggest private-equity property investor, which bought the hotel in 2012 for €67 million, entered into exclusive talks this week with DekaBank, which is owned by a group of German savings banks, the sources said.
The hotel, rebranded as the DoubleTree by Hilton in 2013, also attracted bids from the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and US groups Hyatt Hotels and Host Hotels & Resorts, according to industry sources.
Dalata
On Wednesday, Dalata Hotel Group, Ireland's largest hotel operator, said it had entered exclusive talks to lease and operate the hotel with an unnamed party that was negotiating to purchase the property.
A spokeswoman for Dalata declined to comment further, while a spokesman for Blackstone also declined to identify the preferred bidder for the asset in a deal being run by property agent Savills. A DekaBank spokesman declined to comment.
Refurbishment
Blackstone was among the first wave of overseas investors to dip into the Irish property market after the crash when it bought the Burlington. It spent a further €20 million refurbishing the premises.
The hotel is among a number of four-star establishments to be put on the market in recent months, as room rates and occupancy surge amid rising tourist numbers and a dearth of new hotel openings in recent years.
STR Global, a research firm that specialises in hotel statistics, said this week that revenue per available room in Dublin rose 21 per cent in the seven months to July.
The DoubleTree at Hilton deal would mark DekaBank’s second major transaction in Ireland this year. In March the company bought, for €180 million, the Whitewater Centre, a two-storey shopping mall in Newbridge, Co Kildare, with 30,000sq m of retail accommodation, car parking and 84 adjacent residential units, through its subsidiary Deka Immobilien Investment.
The German group has been in the market for more than a decade, having opened the €230 million Mahon Point shopping centre in Cork in 2005 in partnership with developer O’Callaghan Properties. It also acquired the Tommy Hilfiger shop on Grafton Street in Dublin in 2009 for about €25 million.
