Accor and the American investment fund Colony buy the Nikko hotel in Paris

Accor and the American investment fund Colony today announced they have acquired the Nikko hotel, in the fifteenth arrondissement of Paris, on the banks of the Seine.

Colony will hold 60% and Accor 40% of the capital of the new company thus set up. Accor is to manage the hotel under a long-term contract. The two companies have been partners since the 1999 purchase of the Demeure and Libertel hotels, mainly in Paris.

The Nikko Hotel was previously owned by the JAL Hotels Company; it has 764 rooms on 31 floors. It will continue operations under its present name until the end of 2001. In 2002, a complete refurbishment will be undertaken in keeping with the building's current identity and the hotel will take on the Novotel name.

Its location, its visibility and its architecture will then make it a flagship of the Novotel network.

This project fits in with Novotel’s plans for expansion into capital cities and major towns worldwide. After Geneva, Prague, Cologne, Glasgow, London and Sao Paulo in recent months, Novotel is to open new hotels shortly in Mexico City, Monterrey, Warsaw, Barcelona, Edinburgh, and Manchester.

Colony is a private investment fund, based in the USA, specializing in property. The fund has invested more than US$ 6 billion since it was set up in 1991. At the end of 1997, Colony set up operations in France, and since that date it has invested a total amount of EUR 2 billion in property in Europe. It has offices in Los Angeles, New York, Fort Worth (Texas), Kohala Coast (Hawaii), Seoul, Singapore, Tokyo and Paris.