Monumental Palace Hotel sold for €38 million

Porto’s Monumental Palace Hotel has been sold for €38 million.

The hotel, owned by Mário Ferreira and located in Avenida dos Aliados, was sold to  the luxury French hotel group Maison Albar. The hotel is expected to reopen in September.

The hotel, purchased from BES in 2013, made €38 million for Mário Ferreira, the businessman and entrepreneur who founded and is CEO of Mystic Invest (Douro Azul).

The hotel will be refurbished and rebranded as the Maison Albar Hotel Porto Monumental.

“The agreement for the sale of the Monumental Palace Hotel to the Paris Inn Group takes place as a result of protracted negotiations over several months during which the French company has shown,” a high degree of interest in this unique piece of architecture, considering it as ideal for the Maison Albar brand’s international expansion says Mário Ferreira.

The hotel was purchased by Mário Ferreira in 2013. At that time the entrepreneur had bought it from BES which collapsed one year later.  The plan was to press ahead with the refurbishment and restoration of the building situated in the upmarket area  of central Porto.

The project ended up on ice after a dispute between Mário Ferreira and the contracted builder Soares da Costa.

The refurbishment works were then handed to another builder but Mário Ferreira’s dream of owning a luxury hotel in the city centre never materialised. Now the five-star hotel will become a reality in the hands of a French hotel group that has various hotel units in both France and China.