The news concerning the purchase of Unlock was reported in February. Now a specific fund to acquire hotels in Portugal, managed by Unlock, should be created, which anticipates the expansion to other European countries. In an interview to Negócios, the group’s CEO, Neil Markovitz, stated that «we always looked to Portugal as a market with a fantastic potential to grow».
This new fund will target mainly «golden visa» investors in Portugal and should be created with a capital of between 30 and 40 million euro. The CEO further advanced that «our strategy is to launch the fund until the middle of the year and we already started working with local fund managers, which are already surveying some properties we intend to acquire». The acquisitions plan should be executed within a period of 6 to 12 months after the fund is created.
Concerning the European expansion, Newark does not yet disclose the name of the markets into which it will invest. But the company assumes its concerns with the impact of the new coronavirus «we are extremely concerned about the impact of the new coronavirus. We saw a dramatic change in behaviour within the tourism and travel segments, but we are confident that this will pass. We overcame several obstacles in the past and it is important to remain focused and not to panic».