Investment firm M&G Real Estate, via its European Property Fund, acquired the 250-room Travelodge Barcelona Poblenou Hotel in the Catalan capital for approximately €50 million ($58.6 million), or €200,000 per room.
It is the fund’s first hotel acquisition.
The seller is Travelodge U.K. via its division Travelodge Hoteles España S.L., which will continue to operate the property under a long-term lease, according to CoStar data.
M&G is based in London, and its €4.8 billion European fund is the continent’s “largest open-ended real estate funds, excluding the United Kingdom,” according to a news release on the deal.
M&G said the investment will benefit from Barcelona's policy to ban annual licensing of the 10,101 apartments currently operating as approved short-term rentals in 2028.
“In a more uncertain global environment, we’re focused on assets that can deliver steady, dependable income over the long term. … When backed by strong fundamentals, long leases and solid sustainability credentials, assets like Travelodge Poblenou show how we can add resilience and diversify across both regions and asset classes,” Simon Ellis, the manager of the M&G European Property Fund, said in a news release.
Including this deal, M&G manages approximately $1.2 billion of real estate across several segments in Spain and Portugal.
CoStar data shows the Travelodge Barcelona opened in Feb. 2013 and was last renovated in February 2025.
In its full-year 2025 earnings results published on March 25, Travelodge said its Spanish hotels posted approximately 22% revenue growth and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of “£10.3 million ($12.07 million) with strong margins of approximately 29%.”
Jo Boydell, Travelodge’s CEO, said on the call that “development momentum continues with contracts exchanged for two freehold developments — one in Bilbao expected to open in April 2026 and another in Madrid expected to open in 2027—further building on the three traditional leasehold deals previously announced. With targets in 20 key markets, [we plan] to continue growing in Spain through traditional leasehold developments as well as freehold or leasehold rebrand acquisitions.”
Travelodge has approximately 630 hotels in the U.K., Ireland and Spain.
M&G’s latest earnings report, released on March 12 and also for full-year 2025, showed it had £375.9 billion of assets across all real estate classes under management, an 8.7% increase from the same period in 2024.