One of Scotland’s largest private equity companies has paid almost £14m for a Cardiff office building it intends to convert into a hotel.
The deal is the seventh completed by Glasgow-based Maven Capital’s specialist property team in the last 24 months. Totalling more than £50m, the acquisitions have included two hotel developments — a Travelodge in Llandudno in North Wales and an ibis Styles in Glasgow’s Merchant City — as well as three student accommodation developments.
The Cardiff negotiations were led by the firm’s investment director, Ramsay Duff, and involved the purchase of the empty 64,500 sq ft office building in the centre of the Welsh capital. It will now be converted to a 100-bedroom Hotel Indigo with a rooftop Marco Pierre White Steakhouse bar and grill. Hotel Indigo is the boutique brand of InterContinental Hotels Group.
“We are delighted to have been able to identify, structure and complete another attractive hotel investment for our investors,” commented Duff. “This is a really exciting development, in one of the fastest-growing hotel markets in the UK, well located in the vibrant city centre of Cardiff and able to take advantage of the considerable tourism and leisure trade and growing commercial activity of the Welsh capital.”
In a statement Maven confirmed funding for the project included £5.75m in equity raised from the its UK-wide syndicate of investors and introducers who, it said, would benefit from Business Premises Renovation Allowance, a tax relief intended to stimulate investment in qualifying areas around the UK including Glasgow, Liverpool, Newcastle, Birmingham and Cardiff.
“The Welsh Government has committed to increasing Cardiff’s profile as an international business centre, promoting investment into the business infrastructure, having already undertaken a number of successful regeneration projects including Cardiff Bay,” the statement added.
“Cardiff is now recognised as a key UK corporate, sporting and leisure destination. In 2014, it enjoyed the largest growth in room revenues of any major UK market apart from Glasgow and the city is expected to continue to see increased demand for accommodation.”
Ramsay Duff, joined Maven in 2011 when the private equity house acquired a 100 per cent interest in HM Corporate Solutions, set up eight years earlier as a joint venture between the accountant and corporate financier and law firm Harper Macleod. Maven Capital Partners now handles more £340m of client funds across a variety of property and industry sectors.
