The Dorchester Group has bought the Hotel Principe di Savoia in Milan, Italy, for g275m (£189m) from US-based hotel group Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, it announced last week.
The sale of the Principe di Savoia comes on the heels of the sale of Starwood's Costa Smeralda, Sardinia, hotels for $340m (£206m). The group says it also expects to sell a multi-hotel portfolio in North America during the third quarter and an additional four-hotel portfolio in North America by the end of the year.
Proceeds from the sales will total about $1.1b (£667m) and will be used to pay off debt and for "other general corporate uses".
But Starwood's portfolio is currently unbalanced, according to City analysts, with the group's property assets outweighing its profit streams. "They have a lot of high-worth, trophy assets with low revenue contributions," commented UBS Warburg hotel analyst Simon Johnson.
Incumbent general manager of the five-star, 404-bedroom Principe di Savoia, Paolo Guarneri, will continue under the new management.
The Dorchester Group is wholly owned by the Brunei Investment Agency, the investment arm of the Government of Brunei. Its portfolio includes the Beverly Hills hotel in Los Angeles and the Hôtel Plaza Athénée and the Hôtel Meurice in Paris.