Royal Bank of Scotland Group, the largest bank owned by the UK government has sold London’s Cumberland Hotel to London & Regional Properties and Starwood Capital Group LLC to reduce its investment in hotels.
RBS, which is 84%-owned by the government, also plans to sell the 494-bedroom Grosvenor House Hotel about a mile away on London’s Park Lane. That may fetch as much as 500 million pounds, the Wall Street Journal said.
The bank bought both hotels in 2001 as part of a sale-and-leaseback transaction with Le Meridien.
London & Regional, which is owned by brothers Ian and Richard Livingstone, owns three Hilton-operated hotels in central London, including one on Park Lane. The others are in Trafalgar Square and in Mayfair.
