Invesco Real Estate (IRE) announced on Monday that its first hotel fund is now fully invested following the purchase of its 17th hotel, the Novotel Hanover in Hanover, Germany. This brings the fund's total investments to about EUR 700 mln across nine European countries.

The Novotel Hanover is the 8th hotel that IRE’s dedicated hotel team purchased in 2010, spending about EUR 300 mln in the past 12 months on quality, well-located mid-market hotels following the recovery of the sector at the beginning of 2010. IRE now plans to launch a second hotel fund in early 2011.

The latest addition was purchased from Ebertz & Partner with a long-term lease in place with Accor until 2026, and operating under the Novotel brand. Accor is one of the leading global hotel operators with strong branding and covenant, while the acquisition is in line with the hotel fund's investment strategy of building a diversified pan-European portfolio of leased mid-market hotels.

Novotel Hanover is part of the Podbipark Business Park complex but was sold to IRE as a standalone entity. The Novotel is a modern, four-star business hotel with 206 rooms and 12 meeting rooms accommodating over 330 people, a bar and a restaurant.

Marc Socker, director, Hotel Fund Management at IRE who led the transaction comments: 'We are pleased to have secured this well-located hotel in Germany, in one of Europe’s best performing hotel markets. It is accretive to IRE’s hotel fund and representative of the quality of hotels that we have acquired for our investors to date. We already have a good working relationship with Ebertz & Partner, having concluded a previous transaction through them in Vienna in October 2010, while simultaneously expanding our relationship with Accor, the leading European hotel operator.'