The billionaire Livingstone brothers have teamed up with a Dutch pension fund manager to spend €1bn over the next two years buying hotels from cash-strapped owners.
London + Regional, the global investment company of Richard Livingstone and his brother Ian, has launched a European hotel venture with PGGM and John Ozinga, former chief executive of Accor Invest, the property division of the French hotels group.
L+R Hotels already owns more than 100 hotels, valued at more than €5bn, including Cliveden House in Berkshire, Nobu Hotel Ibiza Bay and the Fairmont Monte Carlo. The new venture will be separate from its existing properties.
L+R and PGGM, a not-for-profit pensions administrator with €291bn under management, will match €500m of equity with a further €500m in debt to target hotel assets in Europe, mainly France, Germany, the Benelux countries, Spain and Italy. They have already completed their first acquisition, a hotel near La Défense on the edge of Paris.
