Read the latest hotel industry news from around Europe.

Azora, the Madrid-based private-equity firm, has acquired via its Azora European Hotel & Lodging fund Italy’s Bluserena SPA, the country’s second-largest resort operator, for an undisclosed price from the Maresca family, who will no longer be involved in operations.

The fund now has deployed approximately 55% of its 1.8 billion euros ($2.04 billion) pool of capital. Founded in 1985, Bluserena has 13 hotels — eight under ownership — and approximately 4,200 rooms, all in coastal destinations, apart from one ski resort. Azora also announced it will spend approximately 30 million euros in capital expenditures on the owned assets.

Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland, is continuing its reinvention, this time around with the 253-room Reykjavik Edition, part of Marriott International. The hotel opened in November and — in a first for the country — offers hotel services to on-site branded residences developed by real estate management and advisory firm Íslenskar Fasteignir.

The city is growing with the addition of new districts. Jökull Alexander Egilsson, general manager of the 195-room Grandi by Center Hotels, which opened on July 1, said the growing Grandi district has space and lower rents, which has attracted start-ups, IT businesses and food-and-beverage outlets to "stretch out” in the downtown area.

Radisson Hotel Group and Cosmos Hotel Group, — part of company AFK Sistema — have agreed on a distribution and marketing agreement that will see Moscow-based Cosmos retain its identity but have 11 of its hotels fall under Radisson’s soft brand Radisson Individuals. Seven of those hotels will join the brand immediately, with the other four doing so by 2025.

Alexander Shvein, president of Cosmos, said, “We are launching a product that is unique for the Russian market: On the one hand, it is the development of a domestic brand and, on the other hand, support from a major international player."

New York City-based Fortress Investment Group acquired a majority stake in Irish hotel and aparthotel firm Prem Group for an undisclosed price through an off-market deal. Prem Group owns and/or manages hotels, has 38 assets and more than 3,000 rooms in Ireland, Belgium, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

Prem’s CEO Jim Murphy said “the investment … will provide significant further capital for expansion, into countries such as Germany where we don’t currently have a presence.”

Raffles Hotels & Resorts has announced the opening date of its long-awaited London hotel in the former Old War Office, once the place of employ of such luminaries as Winston Churchill and James Bond creator Ian Fleming.

The property will open in late 2022 in partnership with owners Hinduja Group. The hotel will have 120 hotel rooms, 85 branded residences and 11 restaurants and bars.

• IHG Hotels & Resorts’ brand Six Senses has announced the Six Senses Lisbon, a 114-room hotel to open in 2025 in two grand buildings, the Palácio Lavra and Palácio das Pedrosas.

• Gleneagles, the brand from Ennismore, which is via a joint venture part of Accor, has announced its first outpost from its famed Scottish home of Auchterarder. The Gleneagles Townhouse in the Scottish capital Edinburgh that will have 33 rooms and a members’ club.
  
• Nobu Hospitality will debut its Nobu Hotel brand in Italy next summer with a 122-room property on the Via Veneto in Rome, a transformation of the 19th-Century Grand Hotel Via Veneto.
  
• Catella Hospitality Europe, Extendam and Cèdre have joined forces to buy the 56-room Hotel La Pérouse on the famed beachside Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France.
  
• IHG and owner JJW Hotels & Resorts have announced the European debut for IHG luxury soft-brand Vignette Collection with the 205-room Grand Hotel Wien in Vienna.
  
• London-based private equity firm Zetland Capital Partners has agreed to acquire two hotels in the U.K., the 338-room Macdonald Manchester and 156-room Macdonald Holyrood in Edinburgh. Renovations are in track for both.
  
• Ruby Hotels has announced its second hotel in Frankfurt, an as-yet-unnamed, 284-room asset to open in spring 2025 in the Allerheiligenviertel district that will complement the Ruby Louise Hotel & Bar in Junghof Plaza, which opened this June.
  
• Accor will open the second of is economy Greet brand in Germany, and ninth in total, with the 61-room Greet Berlin due to open in February in the Alexanderplatz district of the German capital.
• Owner Primestar, which has another 11 hotels, all in Germany, opened the 199-room Holiday Inn Express & Suites Potsdam on Nov. 30.
  
• Union Investment has repositioned the former Ramada Innsbruck Tivoli in Austria, which has been vacant since July, under the Hilton Garden Inn brand in a 30-year lease with operating company HR Group. The hotel opened on Dec. 15.

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