The group announces the sale and franchise-back of seven hotels for €32.6 million, along with a commitment from the buyers to carry out €5.2 million worth of renovations.

As part of the Group's strategy to restructure the assets of HotelInvest, its hotel owner and investor business, Accor today announces the sale and franchise-back of seven hotels (708 rooms) for €32.6 million, along with a commitment from the buyers to carry out €5.2 million worth of renovations.

The transactions were carried out with two strong partners: Starboard Hotels Ltd. for a portfolio of five ibis hotels (Birmingham Bordesley Circus, Leicester City, London Gatwick Airport, Plymouth and Sheffield City) and a joint venture between Cannock Investments Ltd and Hetherley Capital Partners for the ibis Coventry Centre and the ibis Dublin West in Ireland. The six UK hotels were acquired by Accor last December as part of the acquisition of the Tritax portfolio.

As previously announced, three hotelF1 establishments adjacent to three of the ibis hotels in the portfolio (Liverpool City, London Thurrock and London Barking) are currently being converted into extensions of the recently acquired hotels.

John Ozinga, Chief Operating Officer of HotelInvest commented: "Through these two deals, HotelInvest is pursuing its strategy in the United Kingdom - a key market for the Group. These are important destinations served well by the ibis and ibis budget brands and we are delighted to be working with such high quality, long-term partners."

On January 1, 2015, Accor is the sixth largest hotel group worldwide in terms of number of rooms listed each year by MKG Hospitality. At that time it had a network of 3,717 hotels and 482,296 rooms worldwide.