LONDON — AccorInvest, the independent ownership vehicle spun off from French hotel company Accor in 2017, has rebranded as Essendi.
Essendi is the largest hotel owner-operator in Europe, with €7.8 billion ($8.87 billion) of properties in its portfolio as of the end of 2024.
The company announced the rebrand at events held in Monday in London, Paris, Munich and Warsaw. CEO Gilles Clavie said Poland is an important market for Essendi.
In March 2020, Accor sold an 85.8% stake in Polish hotel platform Orbis to AccorInvest for €1.06 billion. Clavie was CEO of Orbis dating back to 2014 and became CEO of AccorInvest in 2020.
Clavie said Essendi is “Europe’s leading hotel owner and operator … with a distinct business model. In economy and midscale, there is great opportunity to increase the quality of our hotel portfolio.”
No mention was made at the four events as to whether Essendi would be active in hotel and portfolio acquisitions. In a separate interview with CoStar News, Martijn van der Graaf, Essendi's chief operating officer for Western Europe, said acquisitions are not off the table.
Van der Graaf said the company's mandate now is a clear focus on owning and operating hotels in Europe's capital cities and hubs, especially in the economy and midscale segments.
“Previously, there were non-strategic assets, some outside of Europe, in Australia, Africa and Asia. Recently, we exited Singapore and Japan and sold a portfolio in Brazil, Now, we are 96% Europe-based, which is where we wanted to be,” he said.
He added Essendi's hotel portfolio is shrinking, but net earnings are the same or even higher with those fewer assets.
“In year 2024, we sold 160 hotels. We’re looking at sustainable and profitable assets and owning a bigger part of the overall real estate. With both the ownership and the operations in place come the premiums,” he said. “We are investing CapEx, and there are many other levers we can pull to reach those premiums.”
Last summer, AccorInvest signed a deal with publicly listed owner Covivio Hotels that it called a “framework agreement,” an asset swap that it predicted would “boost the value of its real-estate portfolio by €393 million.”
The deal has resulted in AccorInvest acquiring the operations and management of 16 hotels from Covivio, of which it already owns the real estate, and the transfer of operational ownership to Covivio of 43 hotels for which Covivio owns the real estate.
At the time, AccorInvest said it owned 702 hotels and 109,684 rooms in 25 countries.
In a news release announcing the rebranding, Essendi said it now owns 576 hotels in 24 countries.
Van der Graaf said the company is not discounting looking at making new hotel acquisitions, but that single-asset deals or bolt-on portfolios are not the current focus.
“In some hotels we have great leases where we have a healthy share of profits. That always comes down to the terms and conditions,” he said, adding Accor remains its largest partner.
Van der Graaf said when the company was first formed, the idea was always to have a new name that had no connotations with Accor.
“That is what we have done now to show clarity to the outside world. We’re not a B-to-C brand, but this move shows to the market the clear positioning we have. There is no one else in Europe with this size of portfolio.
“We’re happy to be asset-heavy, and we want to more asset-heavy,” he added
Portfolio and ESG goals
Essendi will prioritize adding value to the existing portfolio through cost efficiencies and environmental, social and governance strategies, Clavie said.
“[Essendi is] uniquely positioned to a create sustainable value” in our hotels, he added.
Essendi posted full-year revenue in 2024 of €4 billion, a 3.1% increase over the same period in 2023, and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of €656 million, a 6.1% increase over that same timeline.
In February during its full-year 2024 earnings results, Accor said it was starting the process of exiting its financial interests in AccorInvest, interests calculated to be approximately 30% of the latter's portfolio.
Clavie said Essendi has strengthened its financial structure by reducing debt and diversifying financing, notably through the success of two bond issues in 2024.
Its ESG targets include a 50% reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2050.
Franck Bermond, Essendi’s director of construction and ESG, said that 100% of Essendi’s hotels have achieved key ESG certification and that “80% of the value of its real estate assets will be certified BREEAM In Use by 2026.” BREEAM is used to assess sustainability and environmental impact in the U.K. and Europe.
Clavie underlined the importance to the firm of sustainability and its effect on profitability.
Essendi’s construction and renovations strategy is termed by the firm as “Think Circular.” It's a flexible process in which development efficiency and sustainability and asset value are core operational aspects, Bermond said. Plant-based concrete is one initiative.
Essendi's new name, according to Frédéric Stenz, CEO and founder of Næmes — which aided with the rebranding — combines the “seriousness of asset management and the warmth of hospitality and service.”
Clavie added in the news release that Essendi has “strengthened our leadership in Europe, optimized our portfolio, improved our profitability and consolidated our financial structure. Beyond these performances, we are proud to position ourselves as a pioneer in sustainable hospitality. Essendi is today a solid, agile and forward-looking group, ready to seize sustainable growth opportunities in the sector and champion the voice of positive hospitality.”