A Norwegian property company with significant investments in hotels and hotel groups has accumulated a 5.45 per cent stake in Dublin-listed Dalata Hotel Group.
The chief executive of Oslo-based Eiendomsspar has moved, however, to contain speculation that it could amount to a strategic stake-build, telling The Irish Times he sees it as a “financial investment” that would “hopefully provide a fair return over time”.
The CEO, Sigurd Stray, declined to say if Eiendomsspar plans to add to its holding. But he said the company hasn’t any plans to become an active shareholder.
Mr Stray said the investment was based on Dalata being a “a well-driven company with a good position in Great Britain and Ireland” and a view that its shares are trading at a “fair market price in the current market climate”.
Shares in Dalata, which runs a portfolio of 56 owned and leased hotels, mainly in Ireland and Britain through its Clayton and Maldron hotel brands, have fallen 5 per cent so far this year to €4.40. This has left it trading at about a third off Goodbody Stockbrokers analyst Dudley Shanley’s €6.50 net asset value on the stock.
The Republic’s largest hotel group, led by Dermot Crowley, currently has 12,258 bedrooms and a pipeline of more than 700 rooms across its portfolio. It set itself a target last month of having 21,000 rooms either open or in development by 2030.
Eiendomsspar, which first emerged with a disclosable stake above 3 per cent in Dalata at the end of October, before increasing it to 5.45 per cent this week, has an almost 25 per cent sake in Pandox, a Swedish hotel property group that owns and leases 159 hotels across Europe.
Pandox’s portfolio includes the Leonardo hotels at Christ Church in Dublin, Cork, Galway and Belfast.
Eiendomsspar initially took a 50 per cent stake in Pandox 20 years ago as the company was taken private from the stock market. Its shares were relisted in 2015.
The Norwegian company also has a 14.7 per cent interest in Scandic Hotel Group, which operates hotels across Scandinavia on mainly long-term leases. It runs 264 hotels.
Eiendomsspar, which was first established in 1982 to focus on the office and retail property sectors, also has a number of direct hotel investments in its portfolio of property assets. These include the boutique hotels such as the Karl Johan, Christiana Teater and Clarion Collection in Oslo.
The Norwegian company is now Dalata’s fourth-largest shareholder.
Helicon Investments, a London-based hedge fund set up five years ago by former executives from an Italian unit of Julius Baer, is the largest, with a 14.3 per cent interest.
Saudi Arabian conglomerate Zahid Group, a family-owned business that started off in the early 1940s as a General Motors dealership in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah, is the next biggest, with just over a 10 per cent stake. It started to build a holding in 2020 through a Luxembourg-based vehicle called Perpetua Holding Europe Sarl.
Dalata reported in September that revenues for the first half of the year grew by 6 per cent to €302.3 million, while adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) edged 4 per cent higher to €107.6 million.
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