Continental Hotels to undergo 138m-euro investment programme

The partnership between PPF Investments (PPFI) and the Red Group, led by businessman Radu Enache, will result into an investment programme worth approximately 138 million euros within the next five years, doubling the number of rooms in the Continental hotel network. “The sum we are planning to invest, between 2007-2011, is around 135-138 million euros and will result in 3,800 new rooms, an increase from around 1,600 rooms, at present,” says Radu Enache, owner of the Red Group, and president and CEO of Continental Hotels SA. The PPF Investments fund indirectly entered the shareholder structure of the Continental hotel chain, after closing a partnership with the owners of Continental Hotels, with a view to sustaining the investment programme, which will run over the next five years. Based on this agreement, PPF Investments took over 28.14% of the capital of Conti Hotels Investments, a newly-established company through which investments in the Continental chain will be conducted within the next few years, and which holds 73% of Continental Hotels, with the remaining shares being controlled by Radu Enache through Cyprus-based Crossbrook, which holds a 71.83% stake. Red Group is the group through which all operations that Radu Enache develops on the local market are coordinated, also including other segments, apart from the Continental hotels. Besides Conti Hotels Investments, shareholders of the hotel chain include the Romanian Academy – The Foundation of the Menachem H. Elias Family, with 7.5%, Andrei Pop, with a 1.9% stake, SIF Transilvania, with 8.7% and other shareholders, with stakes below 1%.