Definition Capital sells East London hotel

Definition Capital has sold its East London hotel for an undisclosed sum to a joint venture between Avelios and Crestline Investors.

The freehold lifestyle hotel comprises 161 bedrooms, a reception, bar and restaurant facilities. The hotel was constructed in 2018 and is located near to Bethnal Green tube station. It was the first hospitality venture from property investment and development company Definition Capital, led by Irfan Hussain and Marin Jakisic, who specialise in commercial and residential investments in London and the south east.

Avelios Group is an independent investment adviser, operating partner and asset manager focused on European real estate. Investment management firm Crestline Investors was founded in 1997 and is based in Fort Worth, Texas. The company maintains an affiliate office in London.

Henry Jackson, head of hotel brokerage in Knight Frank’s hotels team, which marketed the property, said: “Following from the success of the £70m Yotel Clerkenwell sale, we are delighted to announce the sale of the East London hotel. Kostas Erotokritou and I are thrilled to have completed this off-market transaction for our clients, which continues to demonstrate Knight Frank’s excellent track record in the London hotel market. We look forward to following the development of the asset with interest.

“Following the robust transactional activity in the regional market, investors are focusing on London as the sector continues to recover and we expect transactional volumes to continue to increase.”

Guido Lang, chief investment officer at Avelios, said: “We are very excited to be acquiring this quality lifestyle asset in a rapidly developing London submarket and believe the hotel is well-positioned to benefit from a post-Covid market recovery.”

Andrey Panna, managing director of Crestline, added: “We are constructive on a post Covid-19 hotel market recovery in core locations and believe that by deploying capital into the asset class today, we will be able to generate attractive, uncorrelated returns.”