DLA Piper advises Principal Real Estate on sale of EUR 543 million hotel portfolio to Axa

DLA Piper has advised Principal Real Estate Kapitalverwaltungsgesellschaft mbH,on the sale of a hotel portfolio consisting of eleven high quality, city center properties to Axa for EUR 543 million.

The portfolio comprises over 2,300 rooms in seven Hotels in Germany including the Mondial Hotel am Dom MGallery in Cologne, the NH Hotels in Duesseldorf and Cologne, two Mercure Hotels in Berlin and Hannover, the Intercity hotel in Leipzig and the Steigenberger hotel in Kiel as well as four hotels in other major European cities - the Hilton Danube hotel in Vienna, the Ibis hotel The Hague City centre, the Lux Hotel Lisboa Park, and the NH Hotel Turin Centre.

The closing of the deal concluded the disposal of the entire portfolio of Principal’ Europe’s first hotel real estate fund which first closed in 2012.

The DLA Piper core team was led by partner Dr Florian Biesalski (Real Estate, Frankfurt) and comprised counsel Timo Betjemann (Corporate/M&A, Cologne), senior associates Sonja Beier (Real Estate) and Kais Torchani (Real Estate Finance) as well as Tamara Schwenk (Legal Project Management, all Frankfurt).

Further advice was provided from partners Dr Torsten Pokropp (Real Estate Finance), Semin O (Antitrust, both Frankfurt) and Dr Cornelius Frie (Corporate/M&A, Cologne), of counsel Martin Heinsius (Tax), associates Alexander Lamers (Real Estate, both Frankfurt), Alexander Kath (Corporate/M&A, Cologne) and Christian Georg (Antitrust, Frankfurt). DLA Piper lawyers from Amsterdam, Luxembourg and Milan were also involved in the transaction.