easyHotel PLC easyHotel secures lease for Oxford hotel (6580I)

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RNS Number : 6580I

easyHotel PLC

21 June 2017

21 June 17

easyHotel plc

easyHotel plc

("easyHotel", "the Group" or "the Company")

easyHotel secures lease for purpose-built 180-room "super budget" hotel in Oxford

easyHotel, the owner, developer and operator of "super budget" branded hotels, announces that it has signed a 25 year lease on a site in the city of Oxford, for the development of a new purpose-built easyHotel. The agreement is subject to obtaining planning permission.

Located in Oxford's Summertown, a premium residential and shopping district less than two miles from Oxford city centre, and only half a mile from Oxford's Ring Road, the site is to be redeveloped as a mixed use property. A new purpose-built 180-room easyHotel will occupy the first and second floors of the property and is expected to open in the second half of the 2019 calendar year.

Oxford is a key economic centre in the UK and a popular tourist destination where demand for hotel accommodation is consistently strong. High land costs and the lack of suitable, available sites have made Oxford a very difficult city within which to develop hotels in general, and budget hotels in particular, with only 200 new hotel rooms having opened in the city in the last five years.

Oxford will be the Group's first leased site. The hotel will be let on a 25 year FRI (fully repairing and insuring) lease at an annual rent of approximately GBP1.2m. The hotel will be developed by 4Urban Consulting Ltd through their investment vehicle GHSR LLP, in accordance with easyHotel's specifications. 4Urban are backed by the Bramall family.

As previously announced on 23 May 2017, the Board will only consider leased sites on a limited and specific basis for strategic locations where the acquisition of freehold or long leasehold interests do not meet the Board's investment return targets. This will enable the Company to increase the number of hotel rooms under its direct control and grow its earnings at a lower capital cost whilst, at the same time, maintaining a risk balanced approach to covering the group's future lease obligations.

The Oxford site takes easyHotel's pipeline of owned development projects to 781 rooms in addition to the 1,236 franchise rooms currently under development.

Commenting, Guy Parsons, CEO of easyHotel plc said: "Oxford is a premier business and tourist destination with over 7 million visitors per year. The city has been on our target list for some time and we are pleased to have agreed terms on this new hotel, which will be the closest branded budget and super budget hotel to the city centre. The Board looks forward to announcing further opportunities for the easyHotel brand as we expand our development pipeline."

Enquiries:

 
 easyHotel plc 
 Guy Parsons, Chief Executive    www.easyhotel.com 
  Officer 
 Marc Vieilledent, Chief         http://ir.easyhotel.com 
  Financial Officer 
 Investec (Nominated Adviser 
  and Broker)                    [phone] 
 David Anderson 
 Houston PR (Financial 
  PR)                            [phone] 
 Kate Hoare 
 

Notes to Editors:

www.easyhotel.com http://ir.easyhotel.com

easyHotel is the owner, developer, operator and franchisor of branded hotels. Its strategy is to target the "super budget" segment of the hotel industry by marketing "clean, comfortable and safe" hotel rooms to its customers.

Operating hotels

easyHotel's five owned hotels currently comprise 590 rooms, and it has a further 20 franchised hotels with 1,750 rooms.

Owned hotels:

Old Street (London), Glasgow, Croydon, Birmingham, Manchester.

Franchise locations:

Belgium (Brussels), Bulgaria (Sofia), Germany (Berlin, Frankfurt), Hungary (Budapest), The Netherlands (Amsterdam: City, Arena & Zaandam, Rotterdam, The Hague), Switzerland (Basel, Zurich), UAE (Dubai), United Kingdom (Edinburgh, London Heathrow, Central London, Luton).

Hotel development pipeline

The Company's committed development pipeline of owned and franchised hotels currently consists of:

Owned hotels:

United Kingdom (Liverpool, Ipswich, Sheffield, Leeds), Spain (Barcelona) Subject to planning consent: United Kingdom (Oxford).

Franchise hotels:

UAE (Dubai), Germany (Bernkastel-Kues), Portugal (Lisbon), Turkey (Istanbul), Nepal (Kathmandu), UK (Belfast, Reading).

This information is provided by RNS

The company news service from the London Stock Exchange

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June 21, 2017 02:00 ET (06:00 GMT)