LONDON—Savills has welcomed George Nicholas as the global head of its hotels teams. Based at the firm’s Margaret Street headquarters in London, he will lead the growth of the division across the European, Asia-Pacific, Australian and U.S. markets.
Nicholas has more than 17 years experience in the global hotel investment industry and joins from JLL, where he was EVP in the hotels and hospitality group. At JLL, Nicholas headed the global hotel desk for EMEA and specialized in cross-border capital flows and coordinating the business’ trophy hotel sales. Prior to this, he was director of hotels at CBRE and associate director at Colliers International Australia. He was involved in some high-profile hotel transactions in recent years, including Marriott Grosvenor Square, the InterContinental London Park Lane and the Eagle Portfolio of 42 Marriott hotels.
Nicholas stated, “With hotel transaction volumes across the globe already surpassing $54 billion in 2015, this is a very exciting time for the market. Over the next 18 months, we will be focusing on large-scale European and U.S. gateway city assets supplying the demand generated from our significant Asia-Pacific investor base. Growing the global hotels platform with ‘best in class’ hotel real estate and banking experts will also be a key aim, and we will be actively looking to recruit with this in mind.”