Jumeirah Group, operator of Dubai’s iconic Burj Al Arab hotel, has signed a deal with a Kuwaiti consortium to operate its luxury residential apartments in London’s Park Lane.
The Dubai-based group will open the Grosvenor House Apartments by Jumeirah Living, owned by Park Lane Properties Limited, in early 2012, the company said Thursday in a statement.
Grosvenor House Apartments, which was originally built in the 1920s, features 133 apartments including studio and five-bedroom penthouses.
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Park Lane Properties Limited is majority owned by a consortium of Kuwaiti companies including The Investment Dar and Stehwaz Holding Company.
Jumeirah Group, owned by Dubai’s ruler, is looking to double its properties under management by early next year. The firm has opened Jumeirah Frankfurt and Jumeirah at Etihad Towers in Abu Dhabi so far this year and plans to open new properties in Mallorca, Dubai, Kuwait, the Maldives and Baku.
The operator in May said it was also mulling its first property in Russia in a bid to tap increasing demand for luxury travel in the country.
“I tell you, we need to open in Russia. If we could we would,” its executive chairman Gerard Lawless said.
“We would be very pleased to open in Russia. We have had a number of discussions but nothing has come to any conclusion,” he added.
The group is not currently planning an initial public offering or bond issue, Lawless said in October.
“We are very happy with our levels of financing and debt at the moment,” he said. “The funding positions are not difficult for us, we are in a strong position where we have investors who own the hotels, they build the hotels and we brand them.”
“We are asset-light ... We have been very encouraged by the success of the acquisition of management contracts and it continues to grow.”
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