NEC's Hilton sold in £500 million property deal
The Hilton Birmingham Metropole at the NEC has been sold as part of a property deal said to be worth around £500 million.
The hotel – the biggest outside London – has been bought by European real estate investment group Henderson Park along with the Hilton London Metropole near Paddington Station in London.
The pair are being sold by Tonstate Group, which bought them in 2006 for £417m. The price tag on the latest deal has not been disclosed, but is reported to be around £500m.
The deal marks the first move into the UK hotels market by Henderson Park, founded by leading investment tycoon Nick Weber and follows investments into the sector in Paris, where it bought Le Méridien Étoile, the city’s largest hotel, and the purchase of The Ledra, a five-star hotel in Athens in June.
The Hilton Birmingham Metropole is the UK’s largest hotel outside of London with 790 rooms and the UK’s largest conference hotel by delegate capacity with 33 banquet and meeting rooms for up to 2,000 delegates.
It is located at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre, beside Birmingham International Airport and the future HS2 Birmingham Interchange train station.
The Hilton London Metropole on Edgware Road, near Paddington Station, is London’s largest conference hotel, the second largest hotel by room count and one of Hilton’s flagship hotels in the UK Capital with 1,059 bedrooms and 42 conference and meeting rooms.
Hilton will remain as operator of the hotels while Henderson Park’s asset management team looks at new ways to further enhance their value over the medium and long-term.
Nick Weber of Henderson Park said: “Through this transaction we have acquired two of the UK’s largest hotels and conference centres and we’re thrilled to mark Henderson Park’s entry it to the UK hotels market with the purchase of such landmark assets.
"While these latest additions to our portfolio provide us with assets of substantial scale and pre-eminence in prime locations in the UK’s top two cities, they also offer a number of opportunities to enhance value through our own asset management.
Jones Day acted for Henderson Park. CBRE acted for the seller.
