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1. Gruppo Statuto Acquires Six Senses Rome Hotel for €245 Million
Rome-based hotel ownership firm Gruppo Statuto has acquired the 96-room Six Senses Rome from London-based Orion Capital Partners for €245 million ($260 million), approximately more than €2.5 million per key, according to CPP Luxury.
The Italian firm specializes in acquiring Italian luxury hotels and already owns hotels such as the Four Seasons Hotel Milan, Four Seasons Taormina, Mandarin Oriental Milan, W Milan and Rosewood Milan, which will open in 2025. Gruppo Statuto also owns Venice’s Hotel Danieli, which will be rebranded following renovations as the Hotel Danieli Venezia, a Four Seasons Hotel, with an opening date of 2025.
2. UK Government Ends Use of Asylum Hotels
The United Kingdom government will end the use of 50 hotels in the country to house asylum seekers, according to the BBC, which reports the government has contracted with approximately 400 hotels in total. Formerly, the government contracts also were used to house the homeless and those entering the country after being diagnosed with COVID-19.
During a Parliament session today, Minister of State for Immigration Robert Jenrick is expected to announce plans to end some of the contracts. The BBC reports the contracts are costing taxpayers approximately £8 million ($9.75 million) a day. There has been no indication where asylum seekers are to be housed, but last week the government resumed housing some on the Bibby Stockholm, a controversial barge moored off the country’s southern coast.
3. Legal Experts Welcome Reforms for UK Alternative Investment Firms
Following the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union, upcoming reforms to the country’s alternative investment market are welcome, according to legal firm Pinsent Masons.
Ashley Alder, chairperson of the Financial Conduct Authority, said in a recent speech that the industry wants the government to retain “the core framework of the EU’s Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive while tailoring it more effectively to the U.K. market.”
As far as the government is concerned, if not hoteliers themselves, hotels fall into the “alternative asset” bucket.
Mark Shaw, a partner at the legal firm, added the “proposed review of U.K. AIFMD next year was a ‘sensible’ idea, since a proposed revision to the EU regime, dubbed AIFMD II, is now in its ‘trilogue’ process ahead of being adopted” and that “regulatory breathing space for funds is welcome, since the industry has had a continual onslaught of regulatory burden since the credit crisis, which adds compliance costs that are ultimately borne by investors.”
4. Chinese Hotel Developer Country Garden Headed to Default
Chinese conglomerate Country Garden, which includes a division that owns and operates hotels, is the latest property giant in the country to have suffered financial woes, according to the Financial Times. The news outlet reports the company “appears to be heading for default after failing to make a payment on an offshore bond — another critical moment in the slow reckoning taking place in the country’s vast property sector.”
The news comes a little more than a month after the Hong Kong-based firm announced first-half 2023 losses of more than 51 million yuan ($7.5 billion) and a few weeks after several executives from its wealth-management divisions were arrested, “suspected of illegal fundraising,” officials said. Country Garden’s management also said at the time that its latest results marked “the most severe difficulty that the company has ever faced” and questioned whether the company could continue to exist on its current path.
5. UK Hospitality Group Launches Sustainability Forum
U.K. independent body the Sustainable Hospitality Alliance has entered the next phase of its plans by launching the Net Positive Hospitality Academy, which it said is a “revolutionary sustainable training system [that] aims to accelerate sustainability and drive transformative change.”
The SHA said the initiative will “provide scalable knowledge assets, tools and training programs that will equip the sector with the necessary skills and resources to accelerate sustainability.” The industry has called for a more robust framework, both in terms of targets and how to reach them, as legislation, insurance considerations and underwriting requirements change rapidly and operators and owners try to tackle them strategically in day-to-day operations.