"Ms. Moore..."
Barron turned to Yulia and asked,
"I remember you once told me that my father had already chosen a location for the new hotel in London, right?"
"Yes, Your Highness. At that time, your father was interested in a Victorian mansion in Chelsea. The mansion had nearly 40 rooms. Although it had been idle for a long time, the other party wanted 17 million pounds... At that time, your father hoped to transform it into a luxury hotel."
"This price does... require determination."
After hearing what Yulia said, Barron began to understand why his father took the risk of participating in the "London Star" scam.
For example, in the Chelsea area of London, a 40-room mansion at £17 million doesn't sound expensive.
But you have to know that this is a Victorian-style mansion in London in 2002. In the next 20 years, the price will almost increase by ten times or even more than twenty times.
Therefore, the price of such a mansion in 20 years may be as high as 350 million pounds!
Speaking of which, this phenomenon exists in many areas of London, and many mansions are vacant - especially those that are very old...
Because these luxury homes are expensive to maintain, many owners leave them vacant and wait to sell them at a higher price for economic reasons.
Barron thought of his cheap father's idea. To buy such a long-idle mansion for 17 million pounds, and then to renovate and renovate it to use it as a luxury hotel, it would cost at least 30 million pounds in the end!
And the other party was facing other projects at the time, so it is no wonder that he was so confused that he invested so much money in the "London Star" with "attractive returns".
However, Barron admitted that his father's idea of buying a mansion and converting it into a luxury hotel is indeed very feasible.
Because he knew that there would be a shortage of guest rooms throughout Britain, especially in London, in the future.
The entire hotel industry, especially the luxury hotel market, is still very large, and various luxury hotel brands will move into London one after another.
If we rank the luxury hotels in London, we can see that those at the top are those hotels that are located in classical British buildings and have a heavy sense of history. These hotels are also the most popular among the wealthy.
This is not surprising. After all, guests who can afford to stay in luxury hotels will definitely want to experience the classical British aristocratic style when they come to London. As for those modern hotels, where can't they experience it?
Ultimately, luxury brands are nothing more than storytelling.
But what story can compare to the Devonshire family's aristocratic history that has shone in Britain for hundreds of years?
By staying in their hotel, you can directly enjoy the most authentic British duke-level aristocratic enjoyment. I am afraid that such an experience is simply impossible for those rich people to refuse.
"Ms. Moore, please continue to negotiate the price with the owner of the house that my father had taken a fancy to before..."
"Do you want to continue to buy the house and renovate it, Your Highness?"
After hearing Barron's order, Yulia asked in surprise.
Not only her, but even the hotel manager around her had expressions of concern and surprise. After all, being able to manage such a top luxury hotel is probably the dream of all hotel practitioners.
"Yes, Ms. Moore, after all, that was my father's expectation. As the heir of the family, I have the obligation to complete his unfinished work."
"As you command, Your Highness."
After receiving Barron's affirmative answer, Yulia immediately accepted the task.
As for the funds needed... after this period of time, Yulia herself had to admit that the young Duke in front of her did have some kind of magical power and was able to solve some things that seemed extremely difficult and troublesome to her.
Perhaps, the revitalization of the Devonshire family is not just a dream.
In Barron's opinion, purchasing and renovating such a mansion to open a luxury hotel does require a lot of money, but these problems are not unsolvable. The entire process can be completely controlled within an acceptable amount of money through capital operation.
After saying goodbye to the attentive hotel manager, Yulia accompanied Barron into the Rolls-Royce.
"Your Highness, we have already negotiated a price for the three plots of land in King's Cross that I mentioned to you earlier. As you said, we got those plots of land at a price that was within 10% of the premium. The three plots of land total about 2.05 hectares. The prices vary slightly according to their locations. The total estimated cost of the land purchase is about 6.3 million pounds. These funds need to be paid when the contract for the land transfer is signed."
Barron was very satisfied with the acquisition of these three plots of land:
"These funds will be ready within a week, and we can start finalizing the deal with the other party now."
For such large-scale land transactions, it is not really so easy to make a one-time payment. It is very normal to agree on a payment period.
On Barron's side, he needs to close DS Capital's short-term short position before he can move out these funds.
"Also, Ms. Moore, you can try to contact them again to see if there is any land available for purchase in the King's Cross area, even if it is slightly away from the center of the station."
"It won't be easy, but I will try my best."
Barron nodded and changed the subject back to the hotel:
"You said before that the family has already prepared the staff for the new hotel, right?"
"It's not difficult for us. The original four hotels have been in operation for decades and already have many employees who can take on middle and senior management positions. For the new hotels, we can recruit some new employees and have them trained by the old employees. There won't be too much pressure to build one or two new hotels."
This seems more like a model where the old bring up the new. Barron is somewhat grateful for his family's background, which can indeed benefit him in many traditional industries.
"Another thing is the name of the hotel. I know that our family's hotels currently have names like 'Devonshire' and 'Covendish'. It will be a bit confusing when there are more of them in the future. I plan to unify the names of the hotels..."
"Are you going to keep one of the names?"
"I plan to form a hotel group with the existing and future hotels, and name it Cavendish Hotel Group. In the future, ordinary hotels below five stars in the group will be named Cavendish, and 'Devonshire' will be used as the exclusive name of our luxury hotels."
After thinking about it, Yulia felt that this adjustment was a good idea. Devonshire itself was a duke's title with noble attributes, and it was very suitable as the name of a luxury hotel.
The family's previous hotel in London was called the Cavendish Hotel, which has been in business for nearly 35 years. It is relatively more well-known here, so it is appropriate to keep it as the name of the hotel group.
…
After dropping off Yulia, Barron received a call from Bonnie.
After hanging up the phone, he said to Wang Wanting who was sitting in the front passenger seat,
"Laura, you don't have to follow me today. You will have the day off. Just go to DS Capital tomorrow afternoon and wait for me. His Royal Highness will also be there by then."
Before leaving the charity fundraising hotel today, he had already made an appointment with Prince William to visit DS Capital tomorrow.