Ares Real Estate, EQ team up on $500 mln UK hotels acquisition

LONDON, May 9 (Reuters) - Ares Real Estate, and partner EQ Group, have acquired an 18-strong portfolio of UK hotels from Land Securities at a headline purchase price of 400 million pounds ($499 million), in a sign of greater confidence in Britain's property and leisure market.

Ares said the portfolio consisted of mid-scale and economy properties located in central London and major UK city centres.

Under terms of the deal, Ares secured a lease surrender from current hotel operator Accorinvest, who will transfer operations of the hotels to Ares.

"The hotels are well located with an attractive weighting to the London market and have seen performance recover strongly since Covid," said John Ruane, Partner and Co-Head of Ares European Real Estate.

"The rationalisation of the ownership and lease structure offer us exciting opportunities to add value over time."

Ares Real Estate has $48.8 billion of assets under management. ($1 = 0.8013 pounds) (Reporting By Sinead Cruise; Editing by Amanda Cooper)