€500M Tifco Offering Headlines Late Year Flurry Of Dublin Hotel Deals
Apollo Global Management is understood to be preparing the €500M-plus sale of its Irish hotel platform amid a spate of hotel deals in the Dublin market.
Eastdil Secured has been mandated to explore disposal options for the Tifco Hotel Group business, Ireland’s second-largest hotel chain, acquired by Apollo toward the end of 2018, with an auction expected to attract offers at around €500M, according to React News.
The news comes as a number of deals have already concluded in November, including the €400M sale of a majority stake in The Dean Hotel Group, which sold its premium hotel business to an investment vehicle fronted by Lifestyle Hospitality Capital, led by former directors of Ennismore and backed by U.S.-based Elliott Investment Management.
The Park Hotel in Kenmare, owned by hospitality gurus the Brennan brothers, sold for an undisclosed sum to Irish businessman and social entrepreneur Bryan Meehan, who had previously worked with Ali Hewson, wife of U2 frontman Bono, to set up natural skincare beauty line Nude, which was sold to LVMH.
Elsewhere, a group of private Irish investors is closing in on the purchase of The Dawson Hotel on Dawson Street in Dublin city centre. The consortium includes Barry McGrath, a former global partner with law firm Maples Group, which is understood to have agreed to acquire the property for about €16M, which would represent a 9% discount on the €17.5M price CBRE had been guiding when the hotel was brought to market on behalf of owner Tetrarch Capital in January.
U2′s Bono and The Edge and business partner Paddy McKillen Sr. sold the landmark The Clarence Hotel to The Dean Hotel Group, owned by Paddy McKillen Jr. and Matt Ryan, for an undisclosed sum.
McKillen Jr. and Ryan, two of Dublin’s most prominent hospitality entrepreneurs, have held the leasehold for the Wellington Quay hotel since 2019 and had been managing its operations for a number of years before that. They have now taken full ownership of the property.
That purchase was completed with the assistance of a €43M loan facility from Leumi UK and will be used to acquire the hotel’s freehold interest and to fund the addition of 43 rooms.
The Tifco Hotel Group sale would eclipse any of those deals. It operates 25 properties across Ireland, of which around 16 are owned, totalling almost 3,000 rooms. Its portfolio includes its flagship asset, the Hard Rock Hotel Dublin, plus 11 Travelodge hotels across Ireland and Northern Ireland, with the majority in Dublin.
The Travelodge component, which has around 900 rooms, was floated for a €250M sale by Apollo at the end of 2021, while a sale of the 120-room Hard Rock Hotel, which also includes ground-floor retail, was first explored in early 2022 with a guide price of €80M.
Apollo acquired the hotels when it bought the Tifco Hotel business from Goldman Sachs in 2018. The U.S. group is believed to have paid around €320M for the standing hotel assets and committed up to €100M to fund the development schemes. It sold The Crowne Plaza Dundalk Hotel to East Coast Catering for around €11M in August.
