Virgin Hotels’ portfolio outside the United States is now down to one property after the sudden closing of its branded hotel in Glasgow, Scotland, due to a franchisee’s financial struggles about four months after its opening.
The hospitality division of billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Group said the 240-room Virgin Hotels Glasgow opened Aug. 18 and closed Dec. 19, after property owner Lloyds Developments went into administration, the United Kingdom equivalent of a United States bankruptcy filing. Officials of Virgin Hotels, which also operates in Edinburgh, Scotland, with six United States locations, said the company is scouting new owners to reopen the Glasgow property.
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Brokerage Savills is projecting annualized investment returns in the United Kingdom to exceed 8% this year across eight commercial real estate categories, amid an overall recovery as interest rates moderate.
Brokers said returns will be driven by income potential rather than capital growth, as buyers find opportunities to acquire properties with low prices. Savills analysts said retail, industrial, and office space is looking “comparatively cheap” relative to historical norms.
CoStar News>>
Deals for French logistics property portfolios have been gathering momentum since fall 2023, with more expected to be closed in the early months of 2024.
CBRE Investment Management and investment firm Virtuo, advised exclusively by CBRE, recently made official the sale of Virtuo’s six-building Olympe portfolio to investor Axa IM Alts for more than €200 million. In another deal valued between €145m and €150m, London-based asset manager Boreal Investment Management, acting on behalf of its pan-European logistics joint venture with Cadillac Fairview, officially signed up to acquire the Daisy portfolio, consisting of five warehouses in five French regions.
Business Immo>>
Leasing volume for Germany’s seven largest office markets declined more than 30% in 2023 from the previous year, although rents continued to increase in some high-demand locations, according to analysts.
Brokerage German Property Partners said total space take-up in the seven largest office regions in 2023 was about 2.4 million square meters, down 31% from 2022, and it fell hardest in Stuttgart as vacancies rose in all major cities. But high demand for prime central urban space helped spur a 15% rise in office rents in Munich, with similar increases posted by Frankfurt and Berlin.
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Canadian ski towns hit icy bumps during the past year as real estate developments faced some challenges that might have had less to do with snow than its elemental opposite: fire.
About 6,000 forest fires raged throughout remote, wooded areas in northern Canada, most notably in Quebec and British Columbia, as out-of-control conflagrations claimed over 18 million hectares of land. The extended natural disaster decreased property demand in areas near ski hills, according to a report by real estate brokerage Royal LePage, with about 24% of recreational property experts from Canadian ski hill towns witnessing a decline in buyer demand.
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Kimco Realty, North America’s largest public owner of grocery-anchored shopping centers, is moving into 2024 with a portfolio expanded to nearly 600 properties including centers in the fast-growing Sun Belt and coastal markets.
Jericho, New York-based Kimco has added 56 open-air shopping centers, containing a total of 13.3 million square feet, to its existing portfolio of 527 properties after completing its $2 billion purchase of RPT Realty. The all-stock deal is expected to result in initial cost savings of about $34 million, as Kimco’s deal joins a recent nationwide consolidation trend among companies that primarily own high-demand grocery-anchored shopping centers.
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This report was compiled from CoStar’s news publications in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, France, and Germany.