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Rosewood London Changes Hands: Luxury Hotels Now Have Two Owners

Hong Kong’s Cheng family has sold Rosewood London to the Miami hotel investor Gencom and Nortia, the holding company of Spain’s Manuel Lao. The Rosewood name stays on High Holborn, and the building now belongs to investors who buy hotels to hold for a decade.

Eva Winterer

Rosewood London has been sold to Gencom and Nortia Capital, and Hong Kong’s Cheng family keeps the Rosewood name. Gencom, from Miami, invests only in hotels. Nortia is the holding company of the Spanish entrepreneur Manuel Lao. The seller was CTF Development, the family’s investment company. The family also controls Rosewood Hotel Group, which runs the 308-room hotel on High Holborn. The sale was announced on 3 November 2026.

● In brief

The financing. HSBC and Santander provided £225m of senior debt for the purchase and further development of the hotel. Gencom declined to confirm the price, which the Spanish business daily Expansión put at close to £350m.

The seller. The Cheng family put the hotel up for sale in late 2025. Bloomberg reported in December that the sale would ease debt pressure at New World Development, the family’s Hong Kong property group.

The buyers. Karim Alibhai founded Gencom in 1987. Rosewood London is its first hotel in Europe and its second Rosewood, after Rosewood Tucker’s Point in Bermuda in 2017.

The building. The Edwardian building was the headquarters of the insurer Pearl Assurance for decades. Like many hotels in Europe’s capitals, it began life as offices. It reopened as Rosewood London in October 2013 after a redesign by Tony Chi.

The Edwardian courtyard facade of Rosewood London on High Holborn seen through its wrought-iron gates; Rosewood London has been sold to Gencom and Nortia
The courtyard of Rosewood London, now owned by Gencom and Nortia and still run under the Rosewood name. Courtesy of Rosewood London

● Why it matters

The sale separates a well-known hotel from its brand. The Cheng family keeps Rosewood, which Luxury Travel Intelligence ranked fifth of twenty luxury hotel brands this year. The building, and the cost of its future renovations, passes to investors. Rosewood already works this way at The Chancery Rosewood. Qatari Diar developed that hotel, which opened in the former US Embassy on Grosvenor Square in September 2025. InterContinental Hotels Group goes further and owns less than 1 per cent of its rooms, part of a wider shift in who captures the value of luxury travel.

The new owners are private investors with long horizons. Gencom buys hotels to hold for about ten years, ideally below the cost of building new. Nortia invests the fortune Lao made with Cirsa, the gaming group he co-founded with his brother in 1978 and sold to Blackstone in 2018.

Gencom and Nortia now decide the hotel’s next steps. Gencom plans a programme of capital investment, with the budget and timetable yet to be announced. Radha Arora, president of Rosewood Hotel Group, said the company looks forward to supporting the team on High Holborn. Guests will see the same name over the door, while rooms, rates and the next refurbishment are now decided in Miami and Spain.

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Sources