Elegant Hotels acquires another Barbados resort

Elegant Hotels was adding another significant property to its Caribbean portfolio on Monday, acquiring Swiss International Ltd, owner of Waves Hotel and Spa, for a total consideration of $18m (£12.5m).

The AIM-traded operator of Barbados hotels described Waves as a four star, 70-bedroom all-inclusive resort located at Prospect Bay in the parish of St James.

Its occupied 1.8 acres of freehold beachfront land on the so-called 'Platinum Coast', and included a restaurant, bar, gym and destination spa with 18 treatment rooms.

Around $5.46m of the consideration was to be paid in cash to Swiss International's holding company, Beach Holdings, and Elegant Hotels would assume Swiss's existing debt of $12.19m. A further $0.35m would be paid to Paynes Bay Ltd for business and fixed assets of Waves.

Paynes Bay was owned by the current shareholders of Beach Holdings, and carried out the day-to-day operations of Waves. It would be leased back to Paynes Bay until 15 April, when the property would be closed for renovation.

It would be repositioned and repriced, before being rebranded as 'Waves by Elegant Hotels', and reopening for business in the middle of July 2016.

"We see enormous potential for Waves, and are excited about the prospect of creating a family-friendly resort that will complement our existing portfolio and meet the exacting standards that our guests have come to expect from Elegant Hotels", said CEO Sunil Chatrani.

"As we said at the time of our IPO last year, acquiring new assets both in Barbados and in the wider Caribbean is a key part of our long-term growth strategy, and we continue to target a number of other opportunities of this kind", he added.

The agreement was subject to the completion of a credit agreement with the Bank of Nova Scotia, as well as the approval of the Central Bank of Barbados, which was expected to be completed by the end of February 2016.

At 1455 GMT, shares in Elegant Hotels remained stable at 110.5p.