Major Birmingham hotel sold as part of £500m-plus deal

The country’s largest hotel outside of London – the 790-bedroom Hilton Birmingham Metropole – has been sold as part of a £500m-plus deal.

Real estate investor Henderson Park has bought the hotel, along with its sister hotel in the capital, the Hilton London Metropole.

The Hilton Birmingham Metropole, which is at the National Exhibition Centre, is the UK’s largest conference hotel by delegate capacity with 33 banquet and meeting rooms for up to 2,000 delegates.

The seller, Tonstate Group, bought the hotels in 2006 for £417m. The exact value of the deal has not been disclosed, but is reported to be in excess of £500m.

Although Henderson Park already owns large hotels in Paris and Athens, these purchases are its first in the UK hotel sector.

Nick Weber, founding partner of Henderson Park, said: “While these latest additions to our portfolio provide us with assets of substantial scale and pre-eminence in prime locations in the UK’s top two cities, they also offer a number of opportunities to enhance value through our own asset management.”

Henderson Park has confirmed Hilton will remain engaged as operator while it “looks at new ways to further enhance their value over the medium/long-term”.

Birmingham City Council owns the freehold of the Birmingham hotel. In June it transferred the asset to a new property investment body it has created which has the aim of generating additional capital receipts for the local authority.

Hilton Birmingham Metropole