Estonia, Investments, Real Estate, Tourism

Sildmäe owns Rannahotell in Pärnu, which is being renovated now, will be full refurbished by autumn 2014.

Sildmäe did not wish to speculate whether he could become the new operator also for Hotel Palace. "Everything is possible. Life will show, but I would not speculate at the moment," he added.

As reported, Scandinavia's biggest hotels operator Scandic Hotels ceases its activities in Estonia: at the end of last year, it stopped operating the Pärnu Rannahotell early and has concluded a contract for selling Scandic Palace hotel.

Thus Scandic will stop working in Estonia after 14 years of operation in Tallinn.

The palace will be bought from Scandic by Eften SPV 11 OÜ, a half of which belongs to Eften Real Estate Fund and the other half via Esraven AS to Vello Kunman.

The Competition Board has to give a green light to the transaction and at the end of April the real estate, operating rights and staff of the hotel scold be transferred to new owners.

"The nucleus aim of Scandic is managing hotels, not owning real estate. Having found a new owner in Tallinn for the hotel business and real estate, the next logical step for our company is to make our activities more effective," said Scandic's CEO Anders Ehrling.

For Eften, this is the first investment in the hotels business.

The volume of the transaction is confidential.

Eften Capital's CEO Viljar Arakas said that it is a unique investment since Palace has become a kind of an icon with its long history and unique location, right next to the Vabaduse Square in Tallinn.

According to Arakas, they plan to fully renovate the hotel.