Planning to invest 200 million euros to 2020, the largest Portuguese hotel group aims to strengthen its presence in Portugal, but also in Europe and in the United States of America. Its strategy is to lighten the weight of capital invested in real estate, whether by the alienation of some of the assets in its portfolio, from a capital recycling point of view, or by partnerships with investors and real estate funds; focusing on its core business: hotel management, reveals the group’s Chief Development Officer, José Roquette.
Considering the institutional investors to be “ideal partners”, José Roquete emphasized that “it is essential for us to deepen our relationships with the great European investment funds so as to underpin and complement our strategy, already acquired, of borrowing for expansion».
France, England, Germany, Belgium and Italy are some of the European markets where the group is currently analysing investment opportunities. And, as José Roquette asserts, it will be in the capital of one of these countries where the group will soon announce “one of the three to five projects” which it plans to begin on the ‘old continent’ in the following years. Despite not giving details, the man in charge revealed that, “at this moment we are competing for the development of a hotel in partnership with an investment fund in one of these destinations. If this were to materialise, it would probably be operated through our sub brand CR7, under the umbrella of the partnership which we also have with Cristiano Ronaldo”.
The Pestana group currently has a business volume in the order of 400 million euros, 70% of which relate to the hotel business. It has generated assets valued at 1,100 million euros. Besides Portugal, it has a presence in countries as distinct as Brazil, Mozambique, South Africa, São Tomé e Príncipe, and the United States, with projects in development in the cities of Madrid and New York, among other destinations.