London investment firm buys Paris’ largest hotel
A London-based property group has bought the largest hotel in Paris.
Henderson Park, an investment firm set up by former Goldman Sachs executive Nick Weber, purchased Le Meridien Etoile for €365m (£314m).
It was the first purchase for the firm, which was launched in September 2016 and is investing in real estate across Europe. The group bought the hotel from Mount Kellet Capital Management and Cedar Capital having raised £402m from investors, including the Kuwait Investment Authority.
The flagship hotel, situated near the Arc de Triomphe in the heart of the French capital, was built in 1972 and has 1,025 rooms. It is run by Starwood and has recently undergone a major renovation.
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Weber said: "Le Meridien Etoile hotel is a superb hotel with significant potential and fits our approach to investments, being an extremely high quality property in a prime location within a top tier or gateway city, but which also offers the opportunity to asset manage further value.
"We are firm believers in Paris’ strong underlying fundamentals as both a travel destination and an investment location, which, next to London, is one of only two truly global cities in Europe and remains one of the top three cities in the world in terms of tourist numbers."
The purchase comes at a difficult time for Paris' tourist sector, which suffered after terror attacks in the city late in 2015.