To whom "metropol"? Inexpensive

On Thursday, the Metropol Hotel was sold - the owner of the Azimut Hotels hotel chain Alexander Klyachin , the buyer, was the buyer. According to the already so sad tradition, one step was enough for the sale - the initial price of Metropol was 8.7 billion rubles, it left for 8.874 billion rubles. And this - despite the fact that officially on the right to buy a hotel, representing an architectural monument of Art Nouveau, built on the initiative of the philanthropist Savva Mamontov, there were four applicants. According to media reports, many other both Russian and foreign companies showed interest in the object, including Mikail Shishkhanov, Suleiman Kerimov, the Morgan Stanley Foundation, etc. However, they did not participate in the struggle for this “diamond”.

The situation is very reminiscent of the sale of another “trophy” object (“trophy” hotels are called by those that can boast of such a combination of qualities as a unique location, the status of a significant architectural object and a solid brand) - “National”. Then the hotel left the Gutseriev-Shishkhanov clan for 4.675 billion rubles, also after one step. The buyer had only one competitor.

At the same time, experts call the price of the Metropol Hotel “reasonable”. “In“ trophy ”hotels, the price of the room should be about $ 1 million,” says Marina Usenko, executive vice president and head of Jones Lang Lasalle Hotels in Russia and the CIS. - In this case, it turned out about $ 650,000, however, it should be borne in mind that the object is complex and requires reconstruction. At the same time, many restrictions will clearly be imposed on the reconstruction. ”

As for the situation with the number of applicants, it does not cause surprise. If Western companies could simply move away from Metropol because of its “complexity” and that they are not very accustomed to buying objects not directly, but through auctions, then Russian lovers of “captured” hotels so few that they, most likely, simply agreed among themselves. The largest of them today is the Gutseriev-Shishkhan clan (National, Hilton Leningrad, three Marriott hotels, two Holidy Inn). The same category includes entrepreneurs of Zarakh Iliev and the year of Nisanov, who own Radisson Ukraine and Radisson Slavic. The remaining well -known hotels: Ritz Carlton, Ararat Park Hyatt, BaltSchug Kempinski, Lotte, Savoy, etc. belong to different owners, often being the only hotel object in the portfolio.

At one time, Suleiman Kerimov, who showed great interest in hotels owned by the Moscow Government, had a large hotelier, and even entered the project to create a joint venture for their management. However, it was subsequently decided to sell them alone.