William Pears Group has hired the head of hotels from Royal Bank of Scotland to lead a drive into the sector.
The private investor has appointed Duncan Poole to source hotel assets for the group to own and operate.
Poole was head of the hotels team at RBS’s distressed assets vehicle West Register. Prior to RBS, Poole was a director in the capital markets team at CBRE Hotels, where he advised on around €3bn (£2.6bn) of hotel deals across the EMEA region.
He joins William Pears Group in mid-November.
Managing director Jonathan Rose said Pears was planning to invest around £50m of equity into the sector, buying and operating mid-market hotels.
“Because there is no money to buy these types of hotels and because the banks are holding huge amounts of hotels on their balance sheets, we think it is an area that we can make money in,” said Rose.
RBS this week announced the sale of the 10th of 11 Hilton hotels it held in West Register. The bank has sold the 173-bedroom Hilton Glasgow Grosvenor to a private investor for £9.4m. RBS has also recently appointed Jones Lang LaSalle and Hawkpoint to handle the sale of a circa £700m portfolio of 42 four-star Marriott hotels.
The push into the hotel sector comes as Pears ramps up its acquisition drive. The group is in discussions to buy more than £200m of distressed assets from the banks and is investigating the launch of a fund to invest in residential assets in Germany.
Rose said the group was keen to take advantage of the “fantastic opportunities” expected to come to market over the next five to seven years.
