Hotel group Maranatha buys 5 luxury hotels in Paris

The French hotel group Maranatha has announced its acquisition of five luxury hotels in Paris, and one in Nice, all part of the Hôtels du Roy family.

Maranatha, a Marseille-based group founded in 2000 which owns 52 hotels in France ­— half of which are in Paris — has bought the six hotels for 360 million euros from the Leroy family.

Founder and CEO of Maranatha Olivier Carvin said “this is the biggest hotel acquisition in France in 2015”. It’s also Maranatha’s largest ever purchase.

The five Parisian hotels are all situated in prestigious areas of the capital: The Hôtel California, Royal Hôtel and Résidence du Roy, all three located just off the Champs-Elysées, the Hôtel Pont Royal, in Saint-Germain-des-Prés and the Hôtel Royal Saint-Honoré, near the Place Vendôme. The sixth hotel forming part of the acquisition is the La Pérouse, located on the Baie des anges in Nice.

The six hotels comprise almost 500 select rooms. Maranatha plans to spend 50 million euros renovating the Hôtels du Roy, starting next year.

To finance the project, Maranatha has obtained 25% of funding from private investors — ranging from 100,000 euros to 10 million euros each — and the remaining 75% from a loan and a 5-year bond financed by foreign funds.

Carvin references the ‘Airbnb phenomenon’, whereby the holiday rental website Airbnb is offering an increasing number of deluxe properties to rent in Paris, competing with the capital’s high-end hotels. He explains that luxury hotels are the Maranatha’s priority development with the “economy hotels sector” comprising only a third of the group’s revenue.

Carvin tells the Figaro, “the hotel market has all the benefits of real estate with, on top of it, the valuation of goodwill”.

According to him it was the Maranatha’s core philosophy and smart financial arrangements that allowed it to outbid competing Qatari and American investors on this sizeable purchase — in addition to the group’s many backers.

Photo: Anissa Putois