ActivumSG, the Jersey-Based Real Estate Investment Firm, Acquires the 259-Key Nobu Hotel in Barcelona…and Dutch Hotel Company, Odyssey

Main Photo: The Nobu Hotel Barcelona

Date: January 2021

Location: Barcelona, Spain

Name: The Nobu Hotel, Barcelona…and Odyssey Hotels

No. of Keys: 259 at the Nobu and TBA at Odyssey

Sellers: Nobu: The Selenta Group, from Spain….owners/operators of a select group of hotels, such as the Don Carlos, Marbella, Sofia, an unbound Hyatt in Barcelona, the Sir Anthony and the Mare Nostrum Resort, both in Tenerife.

Buyer: ActivumSG, the Jersey-based real estate investment firm, has announced the acquisition of the 259-key Nobu Hotel in Barcelona, Spain from Selenta Group, the Spain-based hotel owner and operator, for €80 million (approx. US$378,000 per key). According to the announcement, Selenta Group recently completed a €57 million renovation of the property and the hotel is now expected to open when Covid-19 restrictions are lifted on business and leisure travel to the capital of the Catalan region. The acquisition is the sixth hotel investment in Spain by ActivumSG.

In a separate deal, ActivumSG fund buys hotel operator Odyssey Hotel Group. The purchase, details of which are not being disclosed, is the second corporate acquisition by ActivumSG Real Estate Fund VI after that of Dutch residential developer VanWonen, almost a year ago.

“We’re looking to accelerate the company’s growth through acquisitions and more hotel openings when others will still be picking up the pieces. We see the steady recovery of leisure and business travel in Europe’s most resilient hotel markets as a major opportunity for our latest fund. This corporate deal highlights how we look at every angle, so our investors get the best risk-adjusted exposure to strong investment themes,” said Saul Goldstein, CEO and Founder of ActivumSG.

Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Breda, the Netherlands, Odyssey focuses on opening and operating hotels in under-served mid-sized towns and cities in continental Europe. It currently operates 12 hotels in Germany, the Netherlands and Finland mostly under franchise agreements with Marriott Group and IHG.

The company already has a pipeline of 20 more hotels scheduled to open before the end of 2024, which will lift the number of guest rooms it operates to more than 5,200 from 1,940 today. These include two hotel openings planned for Austria and one in Spain.

“The Activum fund’s support will allow us to scale up our platform and penetrate new markets in Europe, broadening the footprint of our major hotel brand partners. We are looking ahead with confidence at a post-Covid landscape for the hospitality sector, which will present opportunities for those operators with the liquidity, agility and industry expertise to benefit most from the recovery,” said Odyssey CEO Rick van Erp.

Price: €80m for the Nobu

Price per Key: €308,880

THPT Comment: So 2021 has started with a bang for Activum…congrats on these two deals. Nobu Barcelona opened in late 2019, so we guess a plan to build, open and sell.

First Seen: Activum press release; and IPE Real Assets

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