Prague hotel once owned by Sean Quinn put up for sale by IBRC

The Hilton Prague is likely to fetch as much as €300m and its sale will mark the end of another chapter in the dismantling of the former Quinn empire.

It comes after an approach fronted by Sean Gallagher and backed by former billionaire Sean Quinn to buy the Slieve Russell Hotel in Co Cavan was rejected. That hotel is up for sale with a €35m guide price.

Commercial property specialist CBRE, meanwhile, has been appointed to handle the sale of the Prague property, which is the largest branded hotel in the Czech Republic.

It’s being put up for sale by Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, formerly Anglo Irish Bank.

CBRE said it expects strong investor interest in the property. In 2015, it had previously been reported that Blackstone was among the groups then interested in acquiring the hotel.

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The property – one of the largest Hilton hotels in Europe – extends over more than 81,000 sq m, has 791 refurbished guestrooms, six food and beverage outlets, extensive leisure facilities and approximately 5,000 sq m of conference space.

It opened in 1989 and has performed well following the Covid pandemic, according to CBRE, with €50m invested in the property since 2018.

The latest accounts for a Luxembourg-based holding company show that a firm behind the Hilton Prague – Quinn Hotels Praha – posted a €9.7m profit last year, compared to €9.9m in 2023.

However, accounts in Ireland for the hotel operation show it made a profit of €838,000 in 2022 when it generated revenue of €43.3m. It made an €11.3m loss the previous year.

The hotel was bought by the Quinn family in 2004 for €145m. The price included an adjacent Ibis Hotel, which was sold in 2012.

In 2022, CBRE valued the Hilton Prague at €250.4m. That represented a €28.4m increase on the previous valuation undertaken in 2017. The company behind the property noted that the increase reflected enhancements to the hotel and improved trading conditions.

The hotel made an €8m loss in 2020 as the Covid pandemic flared, compared with a €743,000 loss the hotel made in 2019. At the end of 2020, the company behind the Hilton property owed €229.2m to IBRC.

CBRE said the hotel performs strongly in the meetings, incentives, conferences and events (MICE) market.

“For investors looking for a market landscape with unmet demand, the European MICE market offers healthy, long-term fundamentals,” said Kenneth Hatton, Head of Hotels, Europe at CBRE.

He added: “However, this sub-sector has suffered from under-investment, resulting in a scarcity of product that is able to meet contemporary demand effectively.”

“With the value levers that will be available to an incoming owner, we anticipate investor interest to be extensive,” according to Mr Hatton.

According to the Prague Convention Bureau, 4,900 meetings and conferences were held in Prague last year, with an estimated 691,000 delegates. This represented increases of 25pc and 12pc respectively in 2022.