Covivio, AccorInvest finalize almost €800M deal

PARIS — A pair of France-based companies, Covivio and AccorInvest, have completed a long-gestating deal of consolidating the ownership of jointly owned hotel operating and property companies for a total exchange value of almost €800M. Covivio now holds full ownership of 43 hotels located in France, Belgium, and Germany, and it sold another 16 hotels in the same regions to AccorInvest, the property arm of Accor.

In a deal first announced in November 2023, Covivio and AccorInvest agreed to exchange €393 million ($420 million) in hotels to simplify and consolidate each other’s hotel properties and business assets.

By mid-2024, Covivio, through its subsidiary Covivio Hotels, owned 54 hotels leased to the AccorInvest Group under long-term variable-rent leases based on revenues. The AccorInvest group owned and operated the goodwill of these hotels, signing long-term management contracts with the Accor group.

Covivio Hotels was also indirectly the owner and asset manager of another 60 hotels leased to AccorInvest and held through two joint ventures created between 2010 and 2014: one held 80% by Paris-based Crédit Agricole Assurances and 20% by Covivio Hotels, and the other held by Paris-based Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations, Paris-based Société Générale Assurances and Covivio Hotels.

Management of hotels

Covivio has recently changed its business model from a property investor to more of an asset manager and hotel operator. The company now supports nearly 20 brands in Europe, with an increasingly diversified model.

Of the 43 hotels in this deal, 14 will be managed directly by Covivio’s hotel management platform, WiZiU. Covivio will also rely on two other Paris-based management firms, Atypio Hotels and Sohoma, to operate 22 other hotels in order to accelerate the planned repositioning plan. Atypio will manage 12 properties, Sohoma will manage 10, while five hotels will continue to be operated by Accor.

With the exception of two hotels located in Germany, which will operate under a new lease agreement with B&B Hotels, all the other properties will remain under the Accor brand via short- and long-term contracts. Covivio plans to renovate around 10 hotels in 2025, including the Ibis Montmartre in Paris, the Mercure hotels in Boulogne, Nice and Lyon in France, and the Novotel Sèvres in France. The entire repositioning plan and related works represent an investment of €100.