One of the largest companies in the Russian real estate market, Glenden Invest, Alexander Klyachin, has decided to suspend the business of the Azimut Hotels hotel chain in Europe. Experts attribute this to the difficulties of doing business under sanctions.
News of the holding’s hotel business, which also manages the Metropol Hotel and other assets of billionaire Alexander Klyachin, was shared with RBC by an unidentified representative of Gleden Invest.
By 2022, out of 20 hotels in Europe (as it was 15 years ago), eight hotels remained under company management in Dresden, Erding, Nuremberg, Berlin, Cologne, Munich (where the first Azimut opened in 2008) and Vienna.
In the last four cities, the former Azimut hotels have rebranded to acom-Hotel (according to Booking.com). In the first three, work continues under the old brand.
Earlier it became known that Azimut Hotels and several other companies of the Russian billionaire, originally registered in Luxembourg, are now officially listed in a special tax zone on Oktyabrsky Island in the Kaliningrad region.
Players in the real estate market believe that the review of the holding’s strategy may be due to the difficulty of making cross-border payments due to the restrictions of the sanctions. In this case, the focus on the domestic market is more justified.
The Azimut Hotels press service has confirmed that the management contracts with some European hotels have been terminated.
“The termination or conclusion of management agreements is a constant practice of any management company,” RBC quotes its anonymous Glenden Invest interlocutor.
At the same time, the network intends to remain international, entering new markets, for example, Israel and the CIS countries.
In 2019, when it came to expansion and development, apart from European countries, economically attractive projects in Georgia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Turkey and Bulgaria were considered strategic targets.
A source from Glenden Invest confirms this trend, stating that two new hotels are planned to open in Israel in 2023-2024.
In Russia, the network is actively developing: in 2022, the number of rooms increased by 10% (up to almost 12 thousand), since the beginning of the year, the Azimut Park Hotel Tula (in Yasnaya Polyana) and the Azimut City Hotel Se they have opened Comcity (in Moscow), plans, some more releases.
In total, about 70 hotels and resorts in 50 cities operate under the brand in the Russian Federation.
Author:
Ekaterina Alipova
Source: RB
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