Hotel group acquired in £525m deal

The portfolio includes 26 five and four star regional hotels, with 3,680 beds spread throughout the UK and in major cities including Leeds, Manchester and Glasgow.

QHotel is head-quartered in Leeds and its portfolio is made up of a variety of hotels including spa hotels, golf resorts and luxury hotels. This includes The Queens and Oulton Hall in Leeds, Tankersley Manor near Sheffield, Alwark Manor near York, The Midland in Manchester and three Cheshire hotels.

In the Midlands, the group owns Forest Pines, The Nottingham Belfry and Belton Woods in Grantham.

The acquisition of the QHotel portfolio, which marks the largest hotel transaction this year so far, was funded by Aprirose and its international investors, including Chinese investor Cindat Capital Management.

Aprirose has appointed Redefine|BDL Hotels, a hotel management company, to manage the 26 hotels. The acquisition of the QHotel portfolio follows Aprirose’s purchase of the 73 asset M&B pub portfolio, which has been named Milton Pubs & Taverns.

Manish Gudka, CEO at Aprirose, said: “We are pleased to have completed on this exciting and unique portfolio. This was a complicated deal, which had a lot of interest shown in it from the market, but owing to our investors, contacts and transactional experience we were able to get it done in quick time.  The 26 hotels, spread throughout the UK, will add a new dimension to our asset diverse real estate portfolio and also offer us opportunities to further develop the portfolio to increase the number of beds available.”

Gary Jones, COO at Aprirose, said: “Our strategy is to double the value of assets under management, while at the same time exiting from maturing transactions.  This acquisition is part of a wider strategy and takes our portfolio to circa £1.7bn of assets under management.  We have the resources to continue to grow our balance sheet and we remain very keen to purchase further UK real estate over a variety of asset classes that will show good returns to Aprirose and our investors.”

Aprirose was advised by Colliers, West Ridge, KPMG and Dentons and Bain Capital Credit and Canyon Partners were advised by Eastdil Secured, Deloitte, DLA and Jones Day.