Quintain (QED) has sold half of its Hilton hotel next to Wembley football stadium to private-equity firm, Oaktree Capital Management. The £30m price tag puts the valuation in line with the valuation last September, though under the terms of the joint venture, Oaktree will receive a preferred return - suggesting the US investor, which specialises in distressed deals, needed coaxing. Quintain has been trying to sell the asset since before it was completed for last summer's Olympics.
The developer has been under pressure to demonstrate that it can generate cash from its sprawling projects at Wembley and Greenwich - not least because of its £465m debt pile. Chief executive Max James, who replaced charismatic founder Adrian Wyatt last May, wants net debt to be below £400m by next March, and to that end made asset disposals of £185m in the financial year just finished.
