Singapore-based hospitality group CDL Hospitality Trusts has acquired Hotel Indigo Exeter via a pair of London-based subsidiaries, CDL HBT Investments III Property and CDL HBT Investments III Retail, for a purchase price of £19.4 million.
The sale includes both the hotel building’s High Street-facing ground floor retail units, currently tenanted by Holland & Barrett and Mountain Warehouse, which are valued at £4 million separately.
The 104-bed hotel fully opened twelve months ago in the converted House of Fraser department store. It includes spa and gym facilities as well as a restaurant and two bars and is described by its new owner as an “upscale lifestyle boutique hotel”.
CDL Hospitality Trusts is part of an asset management business which owns 18 hotels in seven countries, as well as a shopping centre and a build-to-rent block in Manchester.
It is controlled by subsidiaries of Singapore-based Millennium & Copthorne Hotels, a hospitality and asset management group with 125 hotels in 22 countries.
Hotel Indigo’s previous owner, IHG, has approved a franchising agreement for the hotel to continue to operate with its existing branding.
Its new owner says it has identified opportunities to “potentially drive better performance” from the business, citing a “limited new supply of rooms within the city centre for the next few years” as well as “leisure travellers from visiting parents and guests during university graduation months”.
The sale of the hotel was announced one week after Frasers Group, which previously operated the 65,000 square feet building as a department store, announced its purchase of adjacent Princesshay shopping centre.
The department store closed four years ago next month and was sold to local wealth management firm Prydis for an undisclosed sum. Its subsequent refurbishment as a hotel reportedly cost £40 million.
It has been on sale with an asking price in excess of £24 million since April.
