BNP Paribas Real Estate has completed a forward funding deal for a 70 bedroom Premier Inn hotel and restaurant to be developed near to Fleet station in Hampshire, on behalf of its client Lamron Estates Ltd, one of the most highly regarded commercial development and investment companies outside the M25.
The buyer, Leicestershire County Council Pension Fund, is set to pay £5.3m for the completed scheme, reflecting a funding yield of 6%. From completion, the hotel will be let to Premier Inn Hotels Ltd, Britain’s largest hotel chain, on a 25 year lease at an annual rental of £336,000 per annum, with rental uplifts linked to CPI every five years.
The new Premier Inn hotel will create approximately 25 new jobs, across a range of levels, primarily from the surrounding area. Whitbread, Premier Inn’s parent company, has a target to allocate 50% of jobs in new site openings to local unemployed people or those 16-24 year olds not in education, employment or training.
John Bates, Head of Acquisitions – UK and Ireland for Whitbread Hotels and Restaurants, said: “Premier Inn is a UK success story. Our existing hotels are trading exceptionally well, we recently reported strong financial results and we are expanding aggressively across the country to provide more great locations for our customers. There are currently over 49,000 Premier Inn bedrooms across the UK and we are actively searching for 6m sq ft of new space to take us to our target of 65,000 bedrooms by 2016. We have added another excellent location for our customers at Fleet and have many more new Premier Inn hotels and restaurants in the pipeline in Hampshire and along the South Coast.”
Paul Griffiths, Head of Investment at BNP Paribas Real Estate, added: “There is a marked shortage of hotel accommodation in Fleet, creating an opportunity for Premier Inn Hotels to open here. The site itself is located close to the amenities of Fleet town centre. The new hotel will reinvigorate the area, which acts as an important gateway to the town.”
Leicestershire County Council Pension Fund was advised by Colliers Capital and MacLaren and Partners acted for Colliers Capital. Goadsbys acted on the initial site acquisition for the developer as well as the letting and Peter Spelman Consultancy advised Premier Inn Hotels Ltd.
