Hotel Bonvecchiati in Venice
INVESTMENT
ECE a fund to watch in Europe
SHOPPING CENTER GIANT LAUNCHES FUND AND ACQUIRES FIRST ASSET . SEES EMERGING OPPORTUNITIES TO GROW IN THE UPPER UPSCALE SEGMENT .
by JEFF WEINSTEIN , EDITOR IN CHIEF
ECE Real Estate Partners , Hamburg , is raising a hotel investment fund with a point of view that is more sector specific than so many other larger , open-ended fund with “ a lot of everything ,” as Dr . Volker Kraft , founder of ECE ’ s investment management platform , likes to call it . “ We want to come with a hotel view and work as more of a specialist ,” he adds .
The new , Luxembourg-based ECE European Lodging Recovery Fund that Kraft refers to now has a seed asset in the heart of Venice since ECE Real Estate Partners in May acquired for € 100 million ( US $ 118.5 million ), together with joint venture partners Soravia and Denkmalneu , the Hotel Bonvecchiati and the Residenzia Bonvecchiati .
Next , after it completes the € 300 million ( US $ 355.6 million ) raise with institutional partners by the end of Q3 ( the Family Office of ECE ’ s Otto family and the fund management team have a 15 % stake ), the plan is to opportunistically and selectively acquire eight to 10 value-add , upper upscale hotel assets . Kraft and Ascan