United Investments Portugal (UIP), a company belonging to Dubai-based IFA Hotels & Resorts Group, has invested €100 million in development in Portugal over the past two years and recently signed a joint venture agreement with Bespoke Hotels, taking a majority stake worth €20 million to further the Bespoke brand in current development darlings, Spain and Portugal.
Led by Managing Director Carlos Leal, UIP already owns and operates the Pine Cliffs, (pictured) a Luxury Collection resort on the Algarve, as well as the Sheraton Cascais Resort, both in Portugal.
In addition, it recently announced the Pine Cliffs Gardens, a residential development inside the resort complex, representing a further €20 million investment, set to open in July 2018. The Gardens, currently in pre-sales, offers 87 apartments with prices starting at €505,000.
Owners can place their units into an optional rental program managed by Luxury Collection. The Gardens follow The Pine Cliffs Ocean Suites, a residential luxury real estate product under the Luxury Collection brand.
“Part of UIP’s strategy is to continuously evaluate different developments with high potential,” Leal says. “Our experience – particularly with property management – helped us identify the huge opportunity to implement a luxury 5-star hotel brand in the Spanish and Portuguese market. UIP has the experience and success in this region, and Bespoke has the brand and the knowledge, to manage properties in several regions worldwide.”
Leal says UIP will further develop via a combination of JV and wholly-owned opportunities with a pipeline of new projects to be announced soon, including developments in Lisbon and the Algarve.
As a flagship development, Pine Cliffs Resort will act as the benchmark for all IFA Hotels & Resorts developments, combining real estate and holiday ownership products with luxury lifestyle experiences.
Leading up to the deal with UIP, Bespoke’s brand had been used across IFA’s portfolio of over 3,000 residential units, mixed-use developments and hotels in the Gulf region, with plans to develop further projects across Dubai and the Gulf Region.
With the signing ceremony on August 24th for the Quinta da Ombria resort in virgin countryside to the north of Loulé, it becomes less likely that United Investments Portugal’s Vale do Freixo development will go ahead.
The resorts are neighbours and both sit on top of the important Quenença aquifer in a Natura2000 area of special protection.
The ‘me too’ tourist village and golf course proposal at Vale e Freixo is being delayed by the Institute for Nature Conservation which at first agreed the development, with certain provisos, but now has gone off the idea of covering this part of the Algarve's wild countryside with yet another tourist development now that Ombria has the go-ahead.
At the end of May 2017, United Investments officially ran out of patience with it's director for Portugal, Carlos Leal, saying he was fed up with waiting for planning permission and that there are plenty of other investments that the company could be making outside Portugal.
The company claims the government has been 'obstructive and dilatory'.
