Gaw Capital’s Goodwin Gaw has European hotels on his mind
Gaw Capital Partners announced on Wednesday its €125-million ($146 million) acquisition of a 50 percent stake in Spain’s Hospes Hotel Group through a joint venture formed by its European Hospitality Fund I and Spanish investment company Omega Capital, as the Hong Kong-based private equity firm continued its plan to branch out into hotels in Europe.
The deal, which the company executed through its GCP Hospitality division, marks Gaw Capital’s second major overseas hospitality investment in a month, after the investment manager agreed to pay A$157 million ($115 million) for a hospitality-office complex in Melbourne, Australia, on July 2nd.
Gaw Plans to Expand in Europe
Gaw will be getting some posh Spanish spaces
Goodwin Gaw, Gaw Capital’s chairman and managing principal hailed the new acquisition, saying it marked an important milestone, as the company is aiming to expand its presence in Europe and “tap the abundant opportunities in one of the world’s most popular tourism markets”.
“We will further expand the Hospes brand by opening more properties in tourist areas and strategic cities within Spain and Southern Europe,” Gaw said, according to a Gaw Capital statement.
Hospes Hotel Group currently owns and operates 10 properties in Spain, most of them luxury 5-star boutique hotels, situated in Madrid, Alicante, Granada, Valencia, Mallorca, Córdoba, Seville, Cáceres and Salamanca.
Continuing a Hotel Tradition
Christophe Vielle, CEO and co-founder of GCP Hospitality, which manages European Hospitality Fund I, expressed confidence in the outlook for Europe’s tourism industry, adding the company would actively explore ways to expand its portfolio in the continent.
The investment is the latest in a string of hotel deals for Gaw, whose founder and chairman bought and renovated the Roosevelt Hotel in 1989 in his first commercial real estate transaction. The private equity firm’s GCP Hospitality Management now operates or has developed a portfolio of 23 hotels in major key destinations in Asia and the United States, according to its website.
One of the largest real estate private equity fund managers in Asia, Gaw Capital has made $7.8 billion in real estate investments over the past four years, according to the Financial Times, including the $938 million acquisition of the InterContinental Hong Kong Hotel back in 2015.
Leave a Reply