The shareholders of the company that owns the biggest hotel in Romania, JW Marriott in Bucharest, want to take out a 111.2 million euro loan from Erste Austria, the new owner of Banca Comerciala Romana.
The loan should be granted for 15 years and will be used to pay the debt Marriott has to creditor banks, which include Erste.
Erste Bank is to take over the largest bank in Romania, BCR, soon, after having signed the acquisition contract for 61.88% in it in exchange for 3.75 billion euros in December 2005.
According to the notice sent to call the shareholders of ONT Carpati for a general meeting, the approval of the loan and pledging the 30% stake in Marriott as security for it, are to be discussed in two weeks'' time, in line with to the latest available data.
Societatea Companiilor Hoteliere Grand (GHES), the owner of the hotel in Bucharest is 55% controlled by the Austrians at Strabag, with another shareholder besides ONT Carpati being Alliance Overseas, 15%. Sources on the market say that businessman Fathi Taher is the man behind Alliance Overseas; he was the chairman of the hotel''s board of directors until last summer.
GHES took out a loan of more than 100 million euros secured by the state in the nineties, in order to build the Marriott Hotel in Bucharest, from a syndicate of Austrian banks headed by Erste.
The five-star hotel has been recently appraised at around 150 million euros, following an audit commissioned by GHES'' creditors.
Marriott has 402 rooms and posted a turnover estimated at 42 million euros in 2005.
Marriott''s business is almost 40% comprised of the food & beverage segment (restaurants and conference halls), which generated 17 million euros in revenues in 2005.
The hotel also collects some 6 million euros a year from rents for office space, stores and a casino, with tenants including Petrom (the marketing division of this petroleum company) or Slovenian pharmaceutical company Lek Pharmatech.
ONT Carpati, one of the main shareholders of Marriott, is controlled by Cyprus-based New Marathon (73%). A significant stake, 5.2%, is held by Gheorghe Racaru, the general manager of the low-cost airline Blue Air and former Tarom chief executive.
ONT Carpati has recently announced it took a 3 million-euro loan from a bank from Cyprus, which it secured with a mortgage on the four-star New Montana Hotel it owns in Sinaia, as well as with a lien on the shares in Marriott.
JW Marriott is operated under a management contract by the international hotel chain Marriott International. The competitors on the Bucharest market of JW Marriott are Athenee Palace Hilton, Crowne Plaza, Intercontinental and Howard Johnson, also ranked as five stars.
The five-star hotel market in the capital city is estimated to total approximately 100 million euros a year. Analysts believe the hotel industry to have a great deal of potential, being set to attract over one billion euros in investments in the medium run. andreea.groenendijk@zf.ro
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