Starboard Hotels and LaSalle have acquired seven Accor-branded UK hotels totalling 913 rooms from Ares Management and EQ Group, lifting Starboard's Accor-managed portfolio to 15 properties. The deal anchors a week of European hotel transactions reported by HVS for the week ending 11 September 2026, with more than 2,000 rooms changing hands across five markets.

The seven-hotel portfolio spans London, Birmingham, Luton, Sheffield and Southampton, operating under the Novotel and Ibis brands. Starboard will continue managing the hotels under the existing Accor franchise agreements — a structure that keeps the brands in place while shifting ownership and management economics to the British owner-operator and its American real estate partner, LaSalle.

What changed hands in Spain, Germany and Denmark?

The week's highest per-room price sits in Madrid. GS Bacares Iberia, the hotel investment arm of Luxembourg fund Nômade Partners, paid Hotei Properties Group SOCIMI €105 million for the five-star, 93-room Nômade Temple Madrid — €1.1 million per room. The Gran Vía property, 500 metres from Puerto del Sol, was formerly the Iberostar Las Letras Gran Vía. Hotei bought it in 2024 for €70 million, renovated it and reopened it in March 2026 under the Nômade brand. GS Bacares assumed the existing lease with operator NMD Gran Vía, securing operational continuity through the ownership change.

In Germany, Iremis acquired the four-star, 219-room Novotel Freiburg am Konzerthaus from Deka Immobilien for a reported €28 million — €128,000 per room, a fraction of the Madrid pricing. Deka held the asset through its open-ended WestInvest InterSelect fund. The hotel sits by Freiburg's central station, with 11 meeting rooms. The current tenant will vacate at the end of 2026, triggering an extensive renovation and a relaunch under the Scandic brand in autumn 2027 — a brand conversion that will remove one Novotel and add one Scandic to the market within 18 months.

In Denmark, CapMan Real Estate bought the four-star, 366-room Crowne Plaza Copenhagen Towers through its CapMan Nordic Real Estate IV fund, in a new 50/50 joint venture with Danish pension company AP Pension. Bellagroup continues to operate the 25-storey Ørestad hotel, positioned halfway between the city centre and Copenhagen Airport and adjacent to the Bella Centre convention facility.

Who is buying UK regional full-service stock?

Two more UK transactions rounded out the week. London-based Banor Capital acquired three four-star hotels totalling 415 rooms through a newly established vehicle: the 135-room DoubleTree by Hilton London Elstree, the 147-room DoubleTree by Hilton Stoke on Trent and the 133-room Holiday Inn Bolton Centre — all with restaurants, spas and pools. Metro Bank provided a £27 million loan facility to finance the acquisition and restructuring. Banor is a repeat buyer: it acquired the Hilton Garden Inn Silverstone in Northamptonshire in July 2026.

In Paris, French private equity firm Extendam and operating partner Ker Hospitality bought the three-star, 31-room Ibis Paris Père-Lachaise from the Ouchelh family. The property, in the 11th district beside the Père Lachaise cemetery, was fully renovated in 2023. Ker Hospitality will take over operations.

The pattern across the week is consistent: private equity and institutional capital absorbing Accor- and Hilton-branded stock at scale in the UK, while a widening per-room spread — from €128,000 in Freiburg to €1.1 million in central Madrid — shows how selectively European investors are pricing gateway-city assets versus regional ones.