Hana Financial Teams Up to Buy Vienna Hilton for €370M

Munich-based Wealthcore Investment Management has joined forces with a consortium of Korean investors including Hana Financial Investment to acquire the Hilton Parkview hotel in Vienna for €370 million ($414 million), according to an announcement by the German firm.

Wealthcore and Korean asset manager Mastern Investment Management, which acted on behalf of Hana Financial, Meritz Securities and NH Investment & Securities, acquired the hotel from two Austrian family offices represented by Vienna-based Invester United Benefits.

The acquisition of the 571 room property, which is the largest hotel in Austria and the third-largest Hilton hotel in Europe, comes just one month after a pair of transactions in Europe saw real estate assets valued at more than $1 billion snapped up by Korean investors.

Buying a 1970s-era Hotel with a Park View

“Vienna as a hotel and congress location is prospering and continues to attract international companies, investors and tourists,” said Christoph Wendl, the managing partner of asset manager Wealthcore, which has transacted €3 billion in deals in Europe on behalf of German and international investors since four former fund managers from Munich-based Real IS Investment started the firm last year.

Wendl said that the 44-year-old Hilton Parkview was a solid and high quality long-term investment in a highly competitive environment.

The 50,000 square metre (538,195 square feet) hotel, which has been operated by Hilton for more than 40 years, is currently undergoing a €75 million refurbishment and extension programme that will add a further 81 rooms to its current tally of 571.

The modernisation works will overhaul the entire interior of the hotel, including the rooms and conference areas, in accordance with the latest Hilton brand standards.

Located in the centre of Vienna between the Am Stadtpark on one side of the hotel and the Wien Mitte railway station on the other, the property includes a 5,500 square metre retail and office element, which is part of the acquisition.

The historical centre of the city including tourist attractions such as St Stephens’ Cathedral is within five minutes’ walk of the hotel, while the Wien Mitte complex provides access to a metro station and the City Airport Train link.

Hana’s Continuing Appetite for European Cities

The acquisition of the Hilton Vienna Parkview is the latest in a string of European purchases this year by Hana Financial.

Just last month, the financial services company acquired an office in Prague for €130 million from Aceur Investment, paying €4,906 per square metre for the 26,500 square metre building.

In April, Hana snapped up Dublin’s Charlemont Exchange from Martlet for €145 million, allowing the Korean company to add the 121,270 square foot four-block office complex to its portfolio after the developer had leased the entire premises to WeWork on a 20-year agreement.

A month before that Irish transaction, working on behalf of Hana Financial, Seoul-based REIT manager JR AMC purchased an office building in France from Tishman Speyer for KRW 220 billion, according to an account in the Korea Economic Daily.

That purchase of the eight-storey Le Cristalia in the western suburbs of Paris came after the financial giant had already teamed up with JR AMC to purchase offices in London and Dublin in November last year, paying €106.5 million for five office buildings under construction in Dublin’s docklands and another £285 million to purchase the Sanctuary Building in the UK capital’s Westminster borough from Blackstone.

Koreans Target Europe

And Hana Financial has not been the only Korean institutional player making shopping trips to Europe in search of real estate assets.

Just last month a Mirae Asset Daewoo-fronted consortium acquired the Majunga Tower in Paris for KRW 1.08 trillion ($925 million), while in June the investment brokerage together with its compatriots from NH Investment & Securities and AIP Asset Management teamed up with the UK’s Valesco Group to purchase an office building in Slovakia leased to Amazon for €120 million.

In August 2018, Korea’s National Pension Service carved out the largest deal of the year for a London property when it bought Goldman Sachs’ new European headquarters for £1.2 billion.