Tristan backs French hotelier with €165m expansion loan

Tristan Capital Partners is providing Paris-headquartered hospitality company Centaurus Group with a €165 million finance facility to support its expansion.

The senior loan is secured against seven recently renovated 4 and 5-star hotel assets and is one of the largest loans granted in hospitality sector in France so far in 2024 according to Tristan. Centaurus Group said this demonstrates the resilience of the hotel industry over the past 30 years and the strategic importance of this asset class. The deal will consolidate and streamline Centaurus’ asset-level debt.

The assets securing the loan include Maison Albar le Vendôme, Maison Albar Champs-Élysées, Maison Albar Le Pont Neuf, Duc de Bourgogne, Best Western Faubourg and Maison Albar Le Diamond.

Centaurus is both a manager and owner of 43 four- and five-star hotels which have a total of more than 2,600 rooms, 30 restaurants, 18 spas, and which employ 1,600 staff. The group’s turnover was €136 million in 2023, and its assets under management were valued at €1 billion.

The group was founded in its current form in 2020 by Céline Falco, Jean-Bernard Falco, and Grégory Pourrin, but the group has been prominent in the Parisian market for four generations. Centaurus Group’s expansion plans envisage opening in new locations including Nice, Chamonix, Divonnes-les-Bains, and Cabrières d’Avignon in France, as well as internationally in Braga, Rome, Brussels, and Côte d’Ivoire in the coming months.

“Considering the strong fundamentals supporting alternative credit markets across Europe, we continue to deploy significant capital on great quality assets and to the highest calibre sponsors.  This is the 17th loan Tristan has arranged since launching its lending platform in the summer of 2021, taking the firm’s total to over €1 billion of loans under management,” said Dan Pottorff, Tristan Capital Partners’ head of debt investment.