Global hotel chain Starwood Hotels & Resorts has sold to Italian investment fund EstCapital Sgr a 400-room hotel portfolio including the two famed Lido hotels in Venice, the Grand Hotel Des Bains and the Hotel Excelsior. According to several Italian media, Estcapital emerged ahead of two international investors as the favourite candidate for the 100-year old hotel sites. About twenty parties manifested interest for the hotels in the first stage of bidding.
Global hotel chain Starwood Hotels & Resorts has sold to Italian investment fund EstCapital Sgr a 400-room hotel portfolio including the two famed Lido hotels in Venice, the Grand Hotel Des Bains and the Hotel Excelsior. According to several Italian media, Estcapital emerged ahead of two international investors as the favourite candidate for the 100-year old hotel sites. About twenty parties manifested interest for the hotels in the first stage of bidding.
The portfolio, which provides a total of about 72,000 m2 of hotel accomodation, was sold for some EUR 150 mln. Starwood will continue managing the hotels. The transaction, which was agreed on Monday, also involves other assets such as 1,400 bathing huts along the sandy beaches next to the hotels and the Villa Cipriani hotel in Asolo, near the Italian northern city of Treviso.
The two hotels on the waterfront of Venice are usually a preferred accomodation for the guests of the Venice Film Festival in September, but remain abandoned the rest of the year. Estcapital's plan is to return them to their former splendour with a EUR 80 mln equity injection. The investment fund, headed by Gianfranco Mosetto, former culture assessor of the Venice council, said it is teaming up with the municipality of Venice for the refurbishment of the sites.
