Irish hotel investment transactions soar above pre-Covid levels

The largest transaction was for Dublin Loft’s Hendrick in Smithfield which was bought by US investment firm TPG for around €37.5m

Cushman & Wakefield’s chief economist Kate English

Sean Pollock Email

June 26 2022 02:30 AM

The Irish hotel investment market continued its strong recovery from Covid in the first quarter of 2022, with a new report revealing transaction activity in the first three months of the year was up on pre-pandemic levels.

According to commercial real estate company Cushman & Wakefield’s latest hospitality Marketbeat report for Ireland, transaction activity hit €73.1m in the first quarter of 2022. This activity level represented a “significant improvement” on the €9.8m recorded in the first quarter of last year but also showed an increase on the level recorded before the pandemic, when transactions were just shy of €60m in the first quarter of 2020.

Kate English, Cushman & Wakefield’s chief economist, said some uncertainty remained in the short term for the hospitality sector but that such assets are “gaining in popularity”. She added this had been “reflected in the much-improved transaction figures so far this year”.

The largest transaction of the opening quarter was Dublin Loft Company’s sale of the Hendrick Hotel Smithfield. The boutique hotel was acquired by US investment firm TPG for around €37.5m.

At the end of the first quarter, approximately 5,630 hospitality beds were under construction, with 5,000 being built in Dublin.

English said more than 3,400 new beds under construction should be finished around the summer/autumn season, which could “ease some of the shortages the market has seen”.

Cushman & Wakefield said anecdotal evidence suggested that Russia’s war in Ukraine could see the geographical focus for investors concentrate on western Europe, with markets such as the UK and Ireland “coming into focus”.

New York Stock Exchange-listed Cushman & Wakefield has around 50,000 employees across 60 countries. In 2020, the firm had a revenue of $7.8bn (€7.4bn).