Kasada Hospitality Fund LP

pending

Kasada Hospitality Fund (“Kasada” or “the Fund”) is a US$500 million hospitality sector focused private equity fund backed by the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund and Accor, Europe’s largest hospitality group (www.kasada.com). Kasada is the first large-sized, professionally sponsored, and managed hospitality investment platform in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Between 2021-2024 Kasada plans to build a portfolio of hotels in SSA primarily through the acquisition of existing and operating (brownfield) hotels as well as the development of a smaller number of new (greenfield) hotel developments. In the context of this ESRS, greenfield hotels are considered to be both any new hotel developments, as well as those hotels which require extensive refurbishment prior to operation. The first phase (“the Project”), implemented over a period of approximately 24 months, will comprise the acquisition, refurbishment, and improvement of up to 20 hotels (or c. 4,000 hotel keys) across six or more SSA countries (comprising operational hotels as well as greenfield hotels). Following each acquisition, the relevant hotels are developed or converted into and operated under the Accor Group (“Accor” or “the operator”) management and branding. To this end, all acquisitions will comprise financing for (i) providing liquidity injections to ensure the functioning of these hotels in the COVID-19 environment (when applicable) and (ii) capital expenditure / improvements to ensure the hotels’ compliance to Accor standards and to achieve higher operating efficiencies. IFC’s proposed investment will support Kasada with a US$160 million debt package (comprising A Loans and syndicated loans). The deployment of IFC’s loans and the Fund’s capital will be structured as sub-projects, each of which will be progressively reviewed by IFC, subject to standardized investment criteria and terms. The first sub-project, Project Ayaba (disclosed in March 2021), comprised the acquisition of 8 existing Accor-managed hotels (run under the Pullman, Novotel and Ibis brands) in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire (4 hotels); Dakar, Senegal (3 hotels) and Douala, Cameroon (1 hotel. The second sub-project under IFCs financing package, Project Umbrella, includes the acquisition and refurbishment of the 206-key Crowne Plaza hotel in Nairobi, Kenya.