Geneva, Switzerland-based investor Stoneweg Hospitality and joint-venture partner, Canary Islands-based owner-operator Lopesan Hotel Group, have acquired the 241-room Hotel Miguel Ángel in Madrid for €210 million ($223 million) or approximately €871,000 per key.
Real estate business consultancy Squire Patton Boggs, which helped broker the deal, said the transaction is the largest deal in financial terms in the Spanish hotel sector in 2024. The seller is Iraqi-British businessman Nadhmi Auchi.
The Hotel Miguel Ángel is an independent, upper-upscale hotel, which opened in June 1977. The property has been closed for four years and is undergoing a renovation that is scheduled to be completed in May 2025.
The deal extends Stoneweg and Lopesan’s interest in Spain and its islands. In addition to the new Madrid hotel, Lopesan has 22 hotels, including 13 in the Canary Islands, four in Germany, three in Austria and individual properties in the Dominican Republic and Thailand under six brand flags, including Lopesan Hotels & Resorts and Kumara by Lopesan Hotels.
The acquisition of Hotel Miguel Ángel is Lopesan's second urban hotel, its other one being the Marriott-branded, 281-room AC Hotel Iberia Las Palmas on the Canary Islands’ isle of Gran Canaria, which opened at the beginning of this year. The rest of its portfolio is comprised of coastal resorts.
Stoneweg has almost 70% of its portfolio of 1,932 rooms in Spain, with most of those in the Canary Islands. At the end of April, Stoneweg acquired two hotels in Spain from Globalia Business Corporation for €83 million: the 226-room La Niña in Tenerife, Canary Islands, and the 184-room Palace de Muro in Mallorca, Balearic Islands. Both are branded as Be Live Hotels.
According to Iberian Property, two other joint ventures have been interested in acquiring the Hotel Miguel Ángel this year. In June it said, “Qatari funds [were] in negotiations with … Auchi” and “already in May 2022, Bain Capital and Stoneweg negotiated the purchase of the five-star establishment for a transaction that could also have reached €200 million.”
In 2003, Auchi was sentenced to a fine of €2 million stemming from allegations of involvement in a corruption scandal centered on French energy company Elf, according to The Guardian.
Auchi's LinkedIn page states he is chairman of the Anglo Arab Organization, which bills itself as a “private non-profit making organization, promoting the integration of British Arabs into mainstream British society, whilst retaining their identity.”