Corinthia to open £270m flagship hotel in London
Corinthia Hotels is to launch a £270m flagship luxury hotel at 10 Whitehall Place in London, after securing £135m of bank funding.
A consortium made up of International Hotel Investments (IHI) of Malta, and two of its principal shareholders Libyan Foreign Investment Company and Nakheel Hotels of Dubai, purchased the Metropole building and the adjoining 10 Whitehall Place from the Crown Estate last year.
The investors have now secured a £135m bank loan raised from a syndication of banks led and arranged by Barclays. The other members of the syndicate include the Libyan Foreign Bank, the Arab Banking Corporation and the Bank of Valletta of Malta.
The bank loan matched the £135m invested as equity by the developers, setting a 50:50 loan to equity gearing on the project.
Corinthia Hotels plans to transform what was the original Metropole Hotel from the 1880s and subsequently part of the Ministry of Defence, into a 300-bedroom luxury hotel, comprising two clusters of restaurants and a bar.
The adjoining 10 Whitehall Place property will be redeveloped to include a luxury spa operated by ESPA, as well as a suite of 12 exclusive residences by the end of 2010.
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By Gemma Sharkey
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