French hospitality giant Accor has signed a memorandum of understanding to sell its 30.6 per cent stake in its Essendi property business to Blackstone and Colony Investment Management for up to €975 million, the company announced last week.
Under the terms of the deal, Essendi's properties will remain under Accor brands and gradually convert to new franchise agreements with an extended duration of 20 years.
Essendi is a 2025 rebrand of the original AccorInvest business, which Accor spun off in 2017 to pursue an asset-light strategy.
As part of that move, Accor separated the vast majority of its owned and leased hotel properties into AccorInvest and in 2018 sold a majority stake in the business to external investors. That year, Accor acquired Movenpick Hotels and Resorts, retaining long-term management contracts and selling the leased properties. It also sold its 86 per cent stake in Orbis to AccorInvest.
When the new Essendi brand was announced a year ago, CoStar called the company the largest hotel-owner operator in Europe with €7.8 billion of properties in its portfolio at the end of 2024. Today, Essendi's website puts its portfolio at 535 hotels across 20 countries.
The Blackstone-Colony IM deal has been in the works since mid-December 2025 when Accor announced the suspension of its share buyback programme.
Accor said in a statement it expects the transaction to close in the third quarter of 2026. After that, the hotelier will no longer have any ownership left in Essendi. Accor, as of mid-December, still owned 104 properties outside of its Essendi stake that remain a part of the hotelier’s 5,800-plus property portfolio.
Accor is also exploring an initial public offering for its lifestyle hotel and restaurant brands entity Ennismore. The company said in its most recent earnings statement the IPO would "enhance liquidity and flexibility to support Ennismore's growth platform" and that if the transaction went ahead, Accor would remain the controlling shareholder.