CMS has successfully advised Quinn Insurance Limited (under administration), its subsidiaries and its administrators at Grant Thornton Ireland on the separate but simultaneous sales of the Hilton Hotel, Sofia and the Sheraton Hotel, Krakow for combined total proceeds of €72 million. Algonquin SA has acquired Sheraton Hotel, Krakow while a consortium of Bulgarian investors has acquired the Hilton Hotel, Sofia.

Quinn Insurance was once a major underwriter of solicitors’ professional indemnity insurance in the UK but was placed under administration in 2010 following an application from the Irish Financial Regulator and is now in a court-administered run-off process.

The CMS team together had to navigate a series of complicated regulatory, financial, tax, logistical and jurisdictional hurdles to allow the sales to complete in the most risk and tax efficient structure for Quinn.

Thomas Page, CMS’ Head of Hotels & Leisure in London, commented: “We are pleased to be involved in these transactions which demonstrate our strong reputation in the Hotels and Leisure sector as well as our cross-border capability, with CMS teams in London, Warsaw, Sofia, Amsterdam and Zurich as well as counsel in Ireland being involved.”

Brendan Foster, Partner at Grant Thornton Ireland, said “We are delighted with the result, although both sales took over 10 months to complete, it shows the high level of focus and specialist skills from CMS to get the deal done.”

The CMS team was led by corporate partner, Thomas Page in London and corporate senior associate, Toni Brown; with assistance from partners Wojciech Szybkowski in Warsaw and David Butts in Sofia; and associates Seraina Tsering in Zurich; and Damia van Laarhoven and Christian Delgado in Amsterdam.