GREENWICH, Connecticut, March 11, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Starwood Capital Group, a leading global private investment firm, announced today that it has acquired, through a controlled affiliate, U.K. hotel and conference center operator De Vere Venues from the De Vere Group for approximately $385 million (£232 million).
The transaction includes a high-quality collection of 23 owned and leased hotels comprising 2,433 keys, 374 meeting rooms and 414,000 square feet of meeting space, predominately located in Greater London. The portfolio also includes nine management and franchise contracts.
"We are very pleased to add De Vere Venues to our growing portfolio of attractive and well-placed assets in the United Kingdom," said Kevin Colket, Senior Vice President at Starwood Capital Group. "The company serves a number of long-term, blue-chip corporate customers, and we look forward to building upon its reputation for operational excellence."
De Vere Venues' portfolio includes a number of impressive properties, including:
Royal Bank of Scotland Plc. and Barclays Bank provided a $232 million (£140 million) facility to assist Starwood Capital Group in the acquisition.
With the acquisition of the 23-hotel Principal Hayley Group in February 2013, the five-property Four Pillars Hotels portfolio in January 2014 and this purchase of De Vere Venues, Starwood Capital Group has invested approximately $1.16 billion (£700 million) in the U.K. hospitality sector over the past 13 months.
About Starwood Capital GroupStarwood Capital Group is a private, U.S.-based investment firm with a core focus on global real estate. Since the group's inception in 1991, the firm has raised nearly $24 billion of equity capital and acquired $47 billion in assets. Starwood Capital Group currently has $33 billion of assets under management. Starwood Capital Group maintains offices in Greenwich, Atlanta, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles and Chicago, and affiliated offices in London, Luxembourg, Paris, Mumbai and Sao Paulo. Starwood Capital Group has invested in nearly every class of real estate on a global basis, including office, retail, residential, senior housing, golf, hotels, resorts and industrial assets. Starwood Capital Group and its affiliates have successfully executed an investment strategy that includes building enterprises around core real estate portfolios in both the private and public markets. Additional information about Starwood Capital can be found at www.starwoodcapital.com.
