London's Grosvenor House Hotel Up for Sale
January 18, 2010 By: Jena Tesse Fox
London’s iconic Grosvenor House Hotel is up for sale. The five-star hotel is owned by state-backed Royal Bank of Scotland, and its sale is expected to raise between $980 million and $1.1 billion.
According to the Telegraph, the hotel could be brought to the market as early as this month.
Grosvenor House, which is operated by Marriott, is on Park Lane in Mayfair and has 494 bedrooms. A price of $980 million would represent nearly $2 million per room. RBS has tried to sell the hotel before, in 2007 and 2008, with several Middle East groups linked with a deal, including Kuwait's Adeem and Bahrain's ruling family.
RBS took control of the asset in 2001, when it paid more than $2 billion for 12 Le Meridien hotels as part of a sale-and-lease-back deal that was used by Nomura to finance its $3.1 billion acquisition of Le Meridien from Compass.
Le Meridien collapsed into receivership in 2003, and operation of Grosvenor House passed to Marriott.
Earlier this year, Grosvenor House announced that they may no longer host their annual Arts and Antiques fair after 75 years.
