Apollo Global Management has selected Société Générale to finance its acquisition of a major portfolio of Holiday Inns.
Apollo secured the deal to buy the 22 hotels from a consortium including Lehman Brothers, GIC and Realstar in September for around £1bn.
It then agreed to sell the portfolio’s flagship asset – the 906-bedroom Holiday Inn Kensington Forum, SW7, to Jason Kow’s Queensgate for £400m.
The £400m SocGen loan, which is secured against the rest of the £630m Project Ribbon portfolio, reflects a loan-to-value ratio of around 70%.
Other lenders that looked at the deal, including JP Morgan and Wells Fargo, are understood to have priced it at around 260bps over Libor. SocGen is thought to have been marginally more competitive.
It is the second Holiday Inn portfolio financing for SocGen in the past three months.
In July it financed Cerberus’s acquisition of 18 Holiday Inns from the same consortium. SocGen provided a £150m loan – which was subsequently syndicated – at an LTV of 65%.
The bank declined to comment on the terms of the latest loan.
Eastdil Secured advised Apollo.
