NH Hotel Group SA

05/19/2021 | Press release | Archived content

NH Hotel Group bolsters its portfolio with 15 new properties in Europe, the Middle East and the US in 2021

Madrid, 19 May 2021. Hotel chain NH Hotel Group plans to open 15 new properties, under the NH Collection, NH Hotels, nhow and Anantara Hotels, Resorts & Spa brands, in 2021, further consolidating its positioning in competitive European destinations and introducing its upper-upscale brand, NH Collection, in the US and Denmark, with NH Collection and NH Hotels also due to make their début in the Middle East.

NH Collection: eight new openings, three new countries

Just this month NH Collection entered the US market with the NH Collection New York Madison Avenue, which has been fully refurbished. The Madison Avenue hotel has 288 rooms, some of which look out over the Empire State building. In addition to opening its maiden establishment in the US market, the Group's flagship NH Collection brand is about to establish a foothold in Qatar and Denmark. The Vyra Suites NH Collection Doha, located in Qatar, with 228 apartments, is due to open its doors during the last quarter of 2021, while the 394-room NH Collection Copenhagen will be inaugurated during the second half, marking the Group's entry into the Scandinavian market.

Two further establishments are due to open shortly under the umbrella of the agreement entered into between NH Hotel Group and Covivio last year. Firstly the 152-room NH Collection Prague Carlo IV, available for booking from this month. Secondly, the NH Collection Firenze Palazzo Gaddi, an establishment located in the heart of Florence, with 86 rooms, also slated to open its doors this month.

Staying in Italy, the NH Collection Venezia Murano Villa, a boutique hotel located on one of Venice's most famous islands, is set to open in June, offering 104 rooms in an unbeatable setting.

Last year, the chain reopened the 70-room NH Collection Palazzo Verona, the chain's only hotel in the romantic city, following full refurbishment, and the NH Collection Venezia Grand Hotel Palazzo dei Dogi, one of the high-end properties originating from the former Boscolo portfolio, an ideally located establishment with a wondrous secret garden and 64 rooms.

Anantara Hotels, Resorts & Spas: three new openings

The Anantara brand, which has reinforced the chain's strategic positioning in the luxury segment, will open three new hotels in 2021. In the autumn the Anantara Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky Amsterdam will open in the Dutch capital, offering a unique combination of city life and contemporary luxury, with 402 rooms. The Group will also open another two of the hotels derived from the Covivio agreement this summer. rebranded as Anantara establishments: Anantara Palazzo Naiadi Rome, marking the brand's début in the city of Rome, which will host 238 rooms in a marble nineteenth-century palace; and Anantara New York Palace Budapest, which will offer visitors 185 rooms on the elegant Erzsébet Körút boulevard.

nhow: one new opening

The NH Hotel Group's most ground-breaking brand is set to open the nhow Brussels Bloom in 2021. This new hotel, whose slogan is 'The Creative Hub: room for art', with an interior design to match, offers a highly unconventional hotel experience with different art forms on every floor. The hotel with its 305 vibrant rooms is a place for bringing together creativity of all sorts.

NH Hotels: three new openings and one new destination

Lastly, the Group will enter the Middle East towards the end of the year when it opens the NH Dubai The Palm. The hotel will complement the existing hotel portfolio of Minor International, NH Hotel Group's largest shareholder, and operate in the city alongside the Anantara, Avani and Oaks trademarks, so widening the range of establishments on offer to the Group's guests. The 14-storey property will have 227 rooms and 306 apartments.

Just recently, in April, the NH Hotel chain made its début in Venice with the NH Venezia Santa Lucia, which is located right beside the Grand Canal and offers 100 romantically decorated rooms. Lastly, the new hotels for which bookings are already available include the NH Hannover in Germany, which also opened in April, offering the chain's services and experiences in that city for the first time.

Reinforced liquidity and recovering hotel business volumes

In parallel with the recovery in the hotel business, Minor International, NH Hotel Group's largest shareholder, has agreed a rights issue of up to €107 million. Minor has already committed to paying the €100 million corresponding to its share of that rights issue in respect of its 94.1% shareholding upfront, a payment that will be structured as a loan.

In addition, NH Hotel Group has agreed to make progress on its asset turnover strategy, already under study, over the next six months. That strategy will take the form of sale & lease back or sale & management back transactions. The Company expects to raise more than €200 million, after tax, from this line of initiative. Elsewhere, the Group has agreed the extension of the maturity on its €250 million loan arranged in April 2020 with a pool of banks and secured by Spain's public credit institute, the ICO, from 2023 to 2026 (with no partial repayments). Lastly, the waiver on all covenants has been extended for all of 2021 and the thresholds for the next covenant tests, scheduled for June 2022, have been eased considerably.

About NH Hotel Group

NH Hotel Group is a consolidated multinational hotel operator and a benchmark player in the city hotel segment in Europe and the Americas, where it operates 355 establishments. Since 2019, the Company has been working with Minor Hotels on integrating all of its hotel trademarks under a single corporate umbrella brand with a presence in over 50 countries worldwide. A portfolio of over 500 hotels has been articulated around eight brands - NH Hotels, NH Collection, nhow, Tivoli, Anantara, Avani, Elewana and Oaks - to forge a broad and diverse range of hotel propositions in touch with the needs and desires of today's world travellers.