Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou announces acquisition of easyHotel.com by Tristan Capital Partners

Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, creator and owner of the easy family of brands (www.easy.com and www.easyHistory.info), has announced the acquisition of 100% of the share capital of easyHotel Ltd by funds managed by Tristan Capital Partners LLP, a real estate investment management company with total assets under management of over €15b.

easyHotel Ltd was previously listed on the London Stock Exchange’s AIM in 2014 and since 2019, has been majority owned by ICAMAP and Ivanhoé Cambridge (the real estate group of CDPQ) who took the company private in 2020. Under their stewardship the easyHotel assets have grown substantially.

Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou and family currently own 17.38% of easyHotel. As part of the transaction, the new owner will be exercising its right to acquire 100% of the shares of the company for a new clean ownership. easyGroup will continue to provide the easyHotel.com brand to the company under license in return for a reasonable royalty.

Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, said, “I would like to personally thank our friends at ICAMAP and Ivanhoe Cambridge for believing and investing in the easy brand and I wish them well with their future ventures. As is normal with the cycle of private equity funds, the time has come for them to sell their shares to a new owner.

“Today we welcome within the easy family of brands Tristan Capital Partners, a highly respected real estate investment specialist as the new owners of easyHotel.com

“The fact that this is the second set of professional investors with deep pockets that will own easyHotel.com brings tremendous validation of both the success of the business model of easyHotel.com and also the business model of easyGroup that created and continues to nurture the easy family of brands. Tristan recognised in their bid that the easy brand values are of vital importance to their future business growth model. We look forward to their plans of significantly accelerating its geographical expansion across Europe.”

Kristian Smyth, Managing Director, Investments, Tristan Capital Partners, said, “Tristan’s Funds have established a leading presence in the European budget hotel sector, with this transaction bringing the total committed hotel investments to in excess of €1 billion to date. The budget hotel sector forms a core part of Tristan’s European investment theses, reflecting the firm’s conviction in the long-term growth potential of this under-represented sector.

The easyHotel brand perfectly complements our growing platform through its incredibly strong brand recognition with a product that offers compelling value in centrally located destinations. We expect to materially expand the existing footprint of the platform and build on our thematic, operationally driven approach.”

Alexandre Aquien, Chairman of easyHotel and co-founder of ICAMAP: “As the outgoing shareholders of easyHotel, we would like to thank Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou for our journey together. We are very proud of our successful partnership which has led to the substantial transformation of easyHotel. We are also grateful for the strong performance of easyHotel’s management team and dedicated employees and are confident they will continue to be successful under their new owners.”

Karim Malak, CEO of easyHotel, comments: “As a well-established and recognised brand across Europe, and part of the easy family, we remain committed to offering guests great value and low-carbon hotels. Over the past five years, our majority shareholders, ICAMAP and Ivanhoé Cambridge, have been instrumental in fuelling our growth. Now EPISO 6, a discretionary fund advised by Tristan Capital Partners prepares to become our new shareholder, we are excited to build on this momentum. Their additional resources and sector expertise will support our expansion at a time when we are seeing a record number of enquiries from potential partners eager to open new easyHotels. Together, we look forward to strengthening our offering, growing our portfolio, and welcoming even more guests to our great-value, low-carbon hotels.”