Global investor, and increasingly property lender, KKR, has committed a EUR300 million loan package to support the recent buyer of the easyHotel business, Tristan Capital Partners.
The long term loan will allow a fund managed by Tristan, which acquired the easyHotel business in June 2025 into its EPISO 6 fund, to set out on an expansion track, with solid financial backing. The highly visible brand currently has 48 hotels across Europe, and Tristan has the conviction that the brand could successfully pop up in many more city markets and tourism destinations.
An experienced hotel market lender
“The easyHotel portfolio combines broad geographic diversification with a proven model in one of the most resilient segments of the hospitality industry,” said Ali Imraan, Head of European Real Estate Credit at KKR. “With this financing, we are supporting Tristan Capital Partners, a strong sponsor with deep expertise in this market, in its expansion of a well-recognized brand across Europe.”
While much of easyHotel’s early expansion focused on directly owned properties, the brand has sought faster expansion via routes such as management agreements, and franchising. Today, its portfolio across Europe is a mix of tenures, with a future focus likely to be more on asset light growth.
Recent investment across the easyHotel estate has been focused on improving operational efficiency, with the brand keen to establish itself as a low carbon operator. Improvements to existing properties have improved energy efficiency, and ensured that new properties are upgraded to use less water, and less electricity for heating.
Among key markets for easyHotel is Spain, where expansion is already under way. In early 2025, the group won backing from Spanish bank CaixaBank to support its continued growth, with a GBP24.5 million loan agreed.
The funds support a pipeline of openings that included a second property in Madrid, which launched in spring 2025. A 94 room property, it is in the San Blas-Canillejas district. The hotel was developed by Redentum Partners, and bought by easyHotel on completion, and was converted from an existing office building. Such conversions are helping the brand to deliver on its promise of being a low carbon hotel group.
Later in the year, hotels in Valencia and Barcelona opened. And into 2026, a hotel in Alicante is due to open. The easyHotel team is now looking to Spanish cities such as Palma, Zaragoza, Cordoba, and Bilbao for future additional hotels.
Accelerating under new ownership
The company has been through several changes of ownership over recent years. The accommodation brand was founded by easy group founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou in 2004, complementing the already successful budget airline. The company was listed on the UK stock market in 2014, and then taken private in 2020 as investors ICAMAP and Ivanhoe Cambridge led a buyout.
Throughout, the business continued to grow, bringing in franchising as a faster growth lever. Then, in mid 2025, new investor Tristan Capital Partners took on the business, aiming to build it to the next level.
