Clifford Chance

Clifford Chance advises Aareal Bank on refinancing of landmark Dutch and UK Park Plaza hotels including Victoria Amsterdam

International law firm Clifford Chance has advised Aareal Bank AG on the refinancing and capex financing of five Dutch hotels and three London hotels owned by PPHE Hotel Group Limited (the "Group''). The three London hotels owned by the Group are Park Plaza Riverbank, Park Plaza Victoria and Park Plaza Sherlock Holmes, the five Dutch hotels operated and owned by the Group are Park Plaza Victoria Amsterdam, Park Plaza Vondelpark, Park Plaza Eindhoven, Park Plaza Amsterdam Airport and Park Plaza Utrecht. At the Group's option and subject to satisfaction of certain conditions, the facility will also refinance the existing development facility for the recently opened art'otel amsterdam.

The refinancing involves a 5-year term facility comprising a sterling tranche of GBP 167,600,000 and a euro tranche of EUR 153,191,000. The afore mentioned hotels were previously financed by three separate facilities provided by Aareal with various maturity dates between December 2013 and September 2017. As well as refinancing the existing facilities, the facility will fund capital expenditure at these hotels.

Clifford Chance counsel Jan-Joost van Rijsbergen, who led the transaction: ''We are excited to have been able to support our client on this important transaction. It includes truly landmark hotels both in London and in Amsterdam. For example, the Victoria Amsterdam is a monumental building and one of the first modern hotels dating from the late nineteenth century. The cutting-edge art'otel and its restaurant 5&33 claim to fuse food, people, art and design. Although it opened just a couple of weeks ago, it is already seen at the new hot spot. Actually, we can see both hotels from our office.''  

The Clifford Chance Finance team that advised Aareal Bank on this transaction was led by Jan-Joost van Rijsbergen and consisted of Krishna van Zundert, Jasper Dijkshoorn and Amin Tamaddoni (all Amsterdam), as well as Damian Perry and Ruby Giblin (both London).