UBM and Vienna House Team Up to Operate Hotels

Date: September 2018

Location: HQ Munich, Germany. Hotels initially in Germany, Austria, Poland and the Benelux countries.

Name: The joint venture’s first hotels are Holiday Inn Munich Leuchtenbergring and Holiday Inn Munich Westpark, both in Germany. 

No. of Keys: First two: 279 and 207

Who: The developer UBM has founded a joint venture with the hotel chain Vienna House.

UBM+VH Hotels plans to conclude new hotel leases with third parties under franchise agreements,

The two companies both search for new projects; Vienna House then assumes the operative hotel management and UBM’s subsidiary UBM hotels Management GmbH assumed the asset management.

Vienna House is the largest hotel operator in Austria with 35 hotels, (18 owned, 8 managed, 5 leased and 4 franchised) in nine countries.

UBM, also an Austrian company, claims to be the largest hotel property developer in Europe.

Vienna House is itself the Austrian subsidiary of Thailand’s U City PCL (U City) with headquarters in Vienna.

A joint venture agreement was concluded with the Thai sister company Absolute Hotelmanagement Services (AHS) for the expansion of each brand on the European and Asian markets.

And another JV….UBM Development Deutschland GmbH is a German property developer with a long-standing tradition, which has already realised 100 projects in its home market.

The company was established on a foundation built by Münchner Grund Immobilien Bauträger AG, which has been active for more than 50 years primarily in the residential area, and STRAUSS & CO. Development GmbH, which has worked on the development of office and hotel projects throughout Germany since 2002.

May 2015 marked the merger of these two project development companies – STRAUSS & CO. and Münchner Grund.

Their strengths cover a wide range of activities from acquisition to obtaining building permits, construction and rental as well as the sale of properties. We offer investors all-inclusive expertise and a high degree of vertical integration, which allow for the realisation of specially designed concepts. Our focus is on the hotel, office and residential asset classes.

UBM is the second largest hotel developer in Germany with projects in the Top 7 cities, including the Holiday Inn Express Berlin, HIE Munich City West, HI Frankfurt Alte Oper, HI Munich Westpark and others.

Numerous landmark projects demonstrate their capabilities and performance: the Zalando headquarters in Berlin, which created working space for roughly 2,700 employees based on a modern open office concept, as well as the Leuchtenbergring commercial project in Munich with its high-quality office and retail areas on approximately 47,000 m2 and over 10,000 completed residential units across Germany.

The 50/50 joint venture with registered seat in Munich will be established retroactively from 1 January 2018 with the name UBM+VH Hotels GmbH.

“This forward-thinking joint venture pools the strength of two partners with many years of experience on the market. I see enormous potential for this partnership to complement each partner’s own growth strategies,” says Rolf Hübner, managing director of UBM hotels Management GmbH.

Rupert Simoner, CEO of Vienna House, adds: “I look forward to our work together and see the joint venture as a fantastic step in the right direction, allowing us to develop another business field while continuing to pursue a clear brand strategy.”

The joint venture is focused on the conclusion of new hotel lease agreements under franchise arrangements with third parties, for the time being in the core markets of Germany, Austria, Poland and the Benelux countries.

Both partners are responsible for the identification of new projects. In the hotel operation, they share responsibilities in accordance with their core competences, with Vienna House in charge of the operating hotel management and UBM hotels handling the asset management.

“The possibility of working with an experienced partner to manage hotels under franchise arrangements expands the range of services of UBM hotels,” says Hübner. “We expect that this new partnership – in addition to our proven model of hotel operation under international management agreements – will generate impulses for further growth.”

The management of UBM+VH Hotels GmbH consists of Johanna Weichselbaumer and Martin Ykema from Vienna House as well as Rolf Hübner and Erwin Zeller from UBM hotels.

THPT Comment: Bold move from these two companies. A JV from two JVs!

First Seen: Vienna House website