Date Created: 15 March 2011
The well-established European company in the vacation ownership business, Hapimag AG, has acquired The Edinburgh Residence in the Scottish capital as part of its expansion plans in the UK.
Edinburgh is the most visited city in the UK outside London and is a great venue for either a short stay holiday to enjoy all the culture and heritage that the city has to offer, or as a convenient base to explore the rest of Scotland.
The Edinburgh Residence is located near the centre of the city and is only a few minutes’ walk from the main shopping street, Princes Street.
Hapimag offers flexible rights of residence at 57 resorts in 16 countries and the newly purchased 29-suite building in the centre of Edinburgh complements its existing UK time-share portfolio: this includes a 45-apartment site in London overlooking Hyde Park and a 46-cottage resort in Bowness on Lake Windermere, in the English Lake District.
Robin Nicholson, Hapimag’s Head of Business Development, said: “Apart from the obvious benefits to all our members in adding Edinburgh to our growing resort portfolio, this acquisition is also important for our expansion plans for the UK. As we currently have less than 2 percent of our members in the UK we're keen to expand our profile here to help us build up our membership in the UK.
“SDI was helpful in bringing this opportunity to our attention as they are active in the time share industry. We looked at it and quickly saw that it fitted into our expansion strategy.”
The Edinburgh Residence, which has 29 suites, was converted for use as a holiday residence in 1996 and has since been managed in a timeshare system. With the purchase, Hapimag is assuming the operating activities of the city residence and existing contracts with approximately 750 individual timeshare members.
However, these timeshare contracts will be expiring in the foreseeable future and Hapimag will be marketing non-contract apartments to its members in January 2011.
