luxury, trophy Hotel & Residential Scheme for the ‘Old War Office’ London
The Old War Office is an exceptional heritage asset with unparalleled history and significance, moments away from St James’s, Trafalgar Square and 10 Downing Street.
On our first site visit, we realised that conversion and refurbishment of the existing structure could create a unique, luxury mixed-use hotel and residential property, with potential for additional development. With no initial backing, we joined the on-going competitive sales process and formulated our own vision and investment memorandum.
We put together an investor joint venture, and acted on their behalf to bid. Having formulated the vision and investment plan, linked to a bid document underpinning security, heritage and planning strategy, we succeeded in the £350m+ acquisition.
Further milestones achieved with the investors were finalising acquisition finance, design development, operator selection and process into planning submission. This is a once in a generation opportunity we succeeded in securing following a tough competitive assessment.
European Private Owner Operator Hotel Group Seeking To Scale Their Business
Working with the client, we created a robust brand portfolio platform with the client’s existing assets, defined the brand architecture and the individual brand DNAs. This allowed us to create the investment platform and formulate the business plan surrounding a €200 million portfolio. Together with the owners we engaged with our institutional sources of capital to drive their growth plans.
Mixed Use, Multi-Asset, Partly Grade 1 Listed Portfolio In London
The overseas client requested separate business plans for their different London assets: capital raise for the hotel, rented residential development, and the refinancing of existing assets.
Rather than address these needs in a compartmentalised order, we joined the dots and linked different assets under one branded Masterplan and investment strategy.
The advantages were unlocking equity value to secure additional 30% financing within £150 million capital raise. The Masterplan will ultimately deliver a brand premium resulting in higher rental and capital values.
