Sol Meliá has announced today the sale of the Sol Inn Bardinos Hotel in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Spain) to the company Arenales de Las Palmas S.L., the current owner of the Meliá Confort Iberia, for 8.4 million euros -1,400 million pesetas-.

Sol Meliá has also announced that it has sold the Sol Las Olas Hotel and its 50% of the Sol Punta Elena Apartments, both located in Fuerteventura (Spain), to the Sara Grup Hoteles S.A. The properties will be transferred to their new owners on 30th. June after Sara Grup Hoteles S.A., agreed to pay a purchase price of 15.62 million euros -2,600 million pesetas-.

The hotel company has also announced the sale of its 75% stake in Lavander’as Industriales de Guadalajara S.A. to the company Fundosa Lavander’as Industriales S.A. for 1.72 million euros -287 million pesetas-.

The sale of the Sol Inn Bardinos, Sol Las Olas and Sol Punta Elena Apartments and Guadalajara Industrial Laundries has generated total capital gains of 8.04 million euros -1,340 million pesetas-. The sold of the three properties and laundries have been carried out at an EBITDA multiple of more than 13.

According to the Vice Chairman of Sol Meliá, Sebastián Escarrer, “the main objective of these operations is to take full advantage of the attractive business opportunities to divest in areas in which we have already consolidated our presence, and then devote these resources to company development in other emerging destinations and in areas where we still do not operate”.

He added that, “Sol Meliá ended 1999 having invested or committed to invest more than 100,000 million pesetas in acquiring 34 hotels, including especially important purchases in London, Paris, Brussels and Mexico City”.

He also explained, “in the cases of Fuerteventura and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, the sale of the Sol Las Olas, Sol Punta Elena Apartments and Sol Inn Bardinos are justified by the profitability of the operations and by the fact that it will allow us to focus on bringing in new, superior quality hotels with better locations alongside the sea in the Canary Islands archipelago”.

On this subject he added, “Sol Meliá has already signed contracts to incorporate new hotels in Tenerife and Lanzarote, and we are also looking at several projects in La Palma, Tenerife and Fuerteventura”.

The Sol Las Olas Hotel and Sol Punta Elena Apartments were acquired in November 1998 and comprise 264 studio-style rooms located inland in Corralejo (Fuerteventura). The Sol Inn Bardinos Hotel, providing 215 rooms and located in the city of Las Palmas, was bought by Sol Meliá en in 1984.

Sol Meliá operates another three properties on the island of Fuerteventura, the Sol Élite Gorriones, the Sol Jand’a Mar and the Sol Brisamar, with a total of 1,093 rooms. In the city of Las Palmas, the company also operates the Meliá Las Palmas and the Meliá Confort Iberia, with a total of 531 rooms.

Throughout the Canary Islands the company has 17 hotels: Tenerife (6), La Palma (1), Gran Canaria (4), Lanzarote (2) and Fuerteventura (3), with almost 4,400 rooms. The company has also already signed contracts to take over another 5 hotels, 3 in Tenerife and 2 in Lanzarote. Once inaugurated, Sol Meliá will have 22 hotels and 6.352 rooms in the Canary Islands.

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