France’s Accor sells hotels to cut debt

French group Accor, Europe’s biggest hotel company, said it was selling five major hotels in four European cities for €154 million to reduce its debts.

The biggest sale will be the Pullman Paris La Defense hotel for €80 million and the buyer of all five is property manager Invesco Real Estate, Accor said in a statement.

The four other hotels are in Munich, Rome and Bratislava.

Accor last month reported an 8.5% drop in its revenue in 2009 to €7.065 billion because of the effects of the global economic crisis and said the results were particularly bad for its more upmarket hotels.

Accor employs more than 150 000 people and runs 3 982 hotels around the world, including the Ibis, Mercure, Novotel and Sofitel brands. – I-Net Bridge.