Enache willing to sell more hotels through sale&lease back contracts

Businessman Radu Enache, owner of the Continental hotel group, with 27 million euros in turnover last year, is considering selling new hotels through sale & lease back contracts, after in the last two years he signed four such contracts, worth around 35 million euros. "Sale & lease back contracts are a source of financing I will probably resort to again. We have other projects in our financing plan, as well, but I will make a decision in the next five or six months, after things calm down on the market," said Radu Enache. Sale & lease back real estate contracts are a source of financing whereby the seller of a real estate property is entitled to use it on long term, in exchange for rent. Enache previously sold two-star hotel Hello in Bucharest through a sale & lease back contract to Immorent, the real estate division of the Erste group, and last year sold the Ibis hotel in Constanta, which will be bought back after 15 years. In 2007 the businessman sealed another two sale & lease back contracts worth 18.4 million euros for Continental Arad and Parlament in Bucharest. Raiffeisen Leasing is the company that worked with Continental for the contracts sealed two years ago.