Sydney-based Iris Capital has landed Australia’s biggest hotel transaction of the year, signing to acquire 17 Ibis-branded hotels from AccorInvest, the share capital division of the multi-national accommodation and hospitality giant.
The AUD$180 million portfolio includes ibis hotels in city and airport locations across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra, with the remainder operating as ibis Budget and dotted across airport and regional centres around Australia.
Representing nearly 1,800 rooms and negotiated by JLL, the transaction takes the Iris Capital portfolio to 45 properties and helps the company continue its growth trajectory into accommodation hotels, building further on its long-held collection of pubs and taverns around Australia.
Craig Collins from JLL sent his thanks to AccorInvest for entrusting JLL to facilitate the sale of the portfolio
“The pure scale of the portfolio and its diversity – in terms of location, market positioning and income profile – attracted significant interest from a very broad range of capital sources.”
Iris Capital CEO, Sam Arnaout, saying he was delighted to have secured the large portfolio in one transaction.
“This purchase fits in well with our current hospitality pub portfolio [and] takes our count to 45 hotels and delivers on the group’s strategy for diversification,” Arnaout said.
“The AccorInvest Portfolio is well placed for repositioning and gives Iris immediate scale in an extremely tightly held hotel market.”
JLL Managing Director – Head of Investment Sales Australasia, Peter Harper, said the sale was a strong sign that hotel real estate activity was well and truly back on in Australia.
“As the biggest hotel sale in 2020, year-to-date hotel transaction volumes have reached almost $600 million which is an incredibly strong result given the start to the year we had,” Harper said.
“This deal, together with our recent sales of the Novotel Brisbane and Vibe Hotel Melbourne, is a clear demonstration of the capital depth in the Australian hotel investment market for everything from metropolitan motels to major CBD hotels.”
According to the Australian Financial Review, the collection of hotels was originally due to be sold to iProsperity prior to its collapse.