Monaco hotel group nabs HBOS man for global push

  Monaco’s state-owned luxury hotel and casino group Société des Bains de Mer has appointed a director from HBOS’s jv team to find a London flagship.   SBM has made Tom Hawley, who was made redundant from HBOS in June, executive vice-president of development. Sources said Hawley, who will be based in Monte Carlo, would be tasked with finding new sites across the globe for SBM.   The luxury hotel group announced last weekend that it planned to expand outside the principality for the first time since it was founded in 1863.   SBM, which owns five hotels in Monaco, including the Hôtel de Paris, is targeting London, Paris, New York, Los Angeles, Miami and the Middle East.   It has around €800m (£634m) to build up a global portfolio to 15 hotels over the next decade.   At HBOS, Hawley ran its 50:50 jv with Johnny Sandleson’s buy-to-let hotel business GuestInvest. The bank entered into a £140m jv with GuestInvest in September 2006 in a bid to turn it into a multi-billion-pound global business. The group currently has five hotels in London.   Qatari Diar, the property arm of the Qatar Investment Authority, which in the UK is led by former Royal Bank of Scotland property head John Wallace, recently launched a bid to buy a 30% stake in SBM.   samantha.mcclary@rbi.co.uk