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The President Hotel is 68 meters high, 22 floors, it has 517 rooms, 918 spaces and 197 parking spaces.
Shop has entered the tallest hotel in the country, the President. According to information from “K”, the company listed on the GEKE Stock Exchange, in which the property is owned, has assigned to a real estate agency of Greek interest in Brussels the search for a buyer for the property, with a total area of 34,280 square meters. The asking price is set at € 110 million, almost three times higher than GEKE’s capitalization of € 38 million. According to information, the main shareholder of the company, the Kefala family, has been seeking the sale of the four-star hotel for two years, while it is said that it is evaluating the exit of the listed company from the Athens Stock Exchange.
El Presidente is 68 meters high, 22 floors, has 517 rooms and 918 spaces and has 197 parking spaces, its location being favored by the short distance (700 meters) from the Panormos and Ampelokipi metro stations. Built shortly before the late 1970s, the hotel is a landmark in Cubist architecture, it was completely renovated in 2004, while GEKE has carried out modernization and improvement works in recent years.
However, for the moment, these attractive hotel features have not attracted potential buyers, at a time when the hit to tourism from the pandemic remains not only severe but also open. The transfer of the hotel will mark developments for GEKE, which was founded in 1972 and its activity is exclusively related to the operation and functioning of the President. “K” contacted GEKE management, who did not comment on the hotel sale process.
In any case, due to the pandemic crisis, this year has been the worst in recent decades for the listed company, as, of course, for the vast majority of hotel companies. The president went into suspension from March 23 to June 18, conference tourism has been minimized, while hotel reservations in central Athens and in large urban centers in general are at an all-time low.
According to the data provided by those responsible for GEKE during the ordinary general meeting last August, from the beginning of the year until the last month of summer, on average the hotel’s occupancy was 27%, from 74% in eight months of 2019. Previously, from January 1 to March 23 and in total during the first half of the year, the occupation of the president amounted to 39% and 34%, compared to 57% and 70%, respectively, during the two periods. In the first semester of 2020, compared to the same period of the previous year, turnover fell by 73.58% to 1.4 million euros. In the first half of the year, GEKE posted earnings before taxes, financial results, investment and total depreciation (EBITDA) -277,000 euros compared to 2.3 million euros in the corresponding period of 2019. In the first half it registered net losses of 669.8 thousand euros. , compared to a profit of 1.3 million euros, presents cash and cash equivalents of 5.4 million euros and zero debt.
