Archer Capital confirmed as buyer of Dublin’s landmark Shelbourne Hotel

Dutch investment firm likely to have paid about €260m for the property

Archer Hotel Capital has bought the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin city centre for an estimated €260m.

The Dutch investment firm – which owns the Conrad Hotel, also in the city centre – had been rumoured as the purchaser of the property from US group Kennedy Wilson, but had declined to confirm if it was involved.

Now filings show that Archer Hotel Capital joint managing directors Guy Pasley-Taylor and Dominic Seyrling have been named directors of KW Shelbourne Ops, the company behind the hotel.

Two other directors of Archer Hotel Capital – John Valembois and Matt Tanner – have also been appointed directors of KW Shelbourne Ops.

The Shelbourne, on St Stephen’s Green, is one of the capital’s longest-established hotels.

It opened in 1824, with past guests including John F Kennedy, John Wayne and Elizabeth Taylor.

Archer Hotel Capital is jointly owned by affiliates of Netherlands-based APG Asset Management, one of the world’s largest pension investors, and Singapore’s sovereign GIC wealth fund.

It owns 13 other hotels around Europe, with a total of just under 4,000 rooms. The properties have a gross asset value of about €2bn. It bought the Conrad Hotel in Dublin in 2019 for about €116m.

Its assets also include the 330-bedroom Renaissance Paris La Defense Hotel; the Hilton Amsterdam at Schiphol Airport; and the 438-bedroom Hotel Arts in Barcelona.

Beverley Hills-based Kennedy Wilson acquired the Shelbourne Hotel in 2014 by gaining control of the property when it bought debt attached to the hotel from Bank of Ireland and the liquidators of Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, formerly Anglo Irish Bank.

Kennedy Wilson also owns Stillorgan Shopping Centre, south Dublin, and around 2,500 apartments in the country.

In 2019, Kennedy Wilson sold the Portmarnock Hotel & Golf Links in north Dublin for €50m to Canada’s Northland Properties. Kennedy Wilson had bought the hotel in 2014 for €27m and spent €11m refurbishing the venue.

Last year, Kennedy Wilson hiked its valuation of the Shelbourne by almost a quarter to around €236m as the property benefited from a recovery in business following the pandemic.

The trophy property had been bought in 2004 for €140m by a consortium that included developers Bernard McNamara and Jerry O’Reilly. The group spent about €125m refurbishing the hotel.

The hotel was Kennedy Wilson’s number one asset across its entire portfolio in terms of the net operating income it derived every year from it.

The Shelbourne made a €6.8m profit in 2022 on revenue of €45m as the effects of the pandemic waned.

Reporting On:independent.ie