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Henderson Park completes Hilton London, Birmingham Metropole hotels buy

European investment platform Henderson Park has acquired the Hilton London and Birmingham Metropole hotels from the family-owned Tonstate Group for £500 million. Thanks to Aareal Bank's senior financing of £330 million, Henderson Park completed the acquisition, and now, the European real estate investment firm has planned to work with Hilton to negotiate an asset management program to enhance the hotels. 

The deals mark Henderson Park's break into the UK hotel market and follows its hotel investments in Paris (Le Méridien Étoile) and Athens (the Ledra). The 1,059-guestroom Hilton London Metropole on Edgware Road in Paddington is considered London's largest conference hotel by delegate capacity and the second-largest by guestroom count. Meanwhile, the 790-guestroom Hilton Birmingham Metropole near the National Exhibition Center and Birmingham International Airport is the UK's largest hotel outside of London and the country’s largest conference hotel by delegate capacity. 

Hilton will continue managing the hotels under the existing hotel management agreements. "The completion of this acquisition brings two significant hotel assets into our portfolio, both of which offer a number of opportunities to further enhance their value through the implementation of a refurbishment and repositioning program we intend to undertake with Hilton," Nick Weber, founding partner of Henderson Park and former Goldman Sachs partner, said in a statement.

While Jones Day acted on behalf of Henderson Park, CBRE acted on behalf of The Tonstate Group. Tonstate put the hotels, which are Henderson Park's first acquisitions under the Hilton brand, on the market in Jan. 2016 for approximately £700 million. Tonstate originally purchased the Hilton Metropole hotels in 2006 for £41 million.