Recovered and debt-free, Accor Invest wants to open "a new chapter"

In 2024, 160 hotels left the group's portfolio, which is both an investor and a real estate operator, including 89 hotels sold for €720 million, two asset exchanges representing 61 hotels and 10 lease terminations, the group said in a results press release published Tuesday.

The group's portfolio currently includes 576 hotels located in 24 countries, with a refocus on Europe and the economy and mid-range hotel segments (Ibis, Mercure, Novotel).

"We announced from the outset that the F1 hotels were a portfolio that AccorInvest was intended to exit. Discussions are underway and we must let the process unfold," the CEO told AFP, without providing further details.

"The fact that we're focusing on the economy and mid-range segments, rather than the super-economy or luxury segments, means that these are the most resilient segments in times of crisis; they're less impacted and, above all, they recover more quickly," explains Gilles Clavié.

Last month, the newspaper Les Echos reported that the American investment fund Fortress was interested in this chain of 130 "French-style motels" for a sum of around 200 million euros.

The CEO of Accor, a group which still owns 30% of AccorInvest as well as the F1 brand, also confirmed at the end of February that discussions were underway, without providing further details.

The former parent company had also announced that it wanted to sell its shares in AccorInvest by the summer of 2026, suggesting that an IPO was not excluded.

AccorInvest, which employs 20.000 people, had been severely weakened by the health crisis, taking on a heavy debt of €5 billion, notably by subscribing to a massive State-Guaranteed Loan (PGE) of €477 million.

With the help of a transformation plan, the group has managed to reduce its debt to 3 billion euros by the end of 2024.

The PGE will be repaid at 50% by the end of 2025, according to Mr. Clavié.

"Today, we are 96% European and 95% economy and mid-range. We have left Africa, Australia, Japan, Brazil, Asia is a matter of weeks... We still have Latin America," which is slated for sale, he continues.

It also plans to change its name, a "new chapter" that will be unveiled at the end of April and will aim in particular to separate itself from the former parent company.

"It's a minimum for the teams, because they have contributed enormously to this transformation, and also for the market because we finally need to know who we are and who we are not Accor," the CEO emphasizes.

Although the group currently only operates Accor brands, it does not rule out opening up to other brands in the economy and mid-range segments in the future.

In 2024, the group generated a turnover of 4 billion euros, up 3% on a comparable basis, and a gross operating margin of 656 million euros (+6,1% on a constant basis).

The CEO also specifies that all of its hotels will be certified Green Key, an environmental label, by the end of 2026.