Oetker buys €155m Latsis estate beside Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc

One of the most significant property deals on the Riviera in recent years has taken place on Cap d'Antibes. According to Challenges, the German Oetker group, owner of Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc, has acquired a nine-hectare estate located just beside the hotel, paying more than €155 million.

The French business magazine, which reported the sale on 22 October, describes it as one of the most important transactions on the Côte d'Azur in recent years. The seller was the family of the late Greek shipowner John Latsis.

Five houses on Billionaires' Bay

The estate comprises five houses. Among them, according to Challenges, are a property referred to as the Children's Castle and one called Casa Estella. Just as notable as the buildings is the setting: the grounds give access to the sea on the Baie des Milliardaires, the so-called Billionaires' Bay, one of the most coveted stretches of shoreline on Cap d'Antibes.

Beyond the price, the terms of the sale have not been made public, and nothing has been announced about what the new owner intends to do with the estate.

The Latsis heirs

John Latsis was born in 1910 in the region of Ilia in Greece. According to the foundation that bears his name, he started out as a shipping broker and insurance agent, went on to build a fleet of passenger ferries, cargo ships and tankers, and later expanded into refining, construction and banking. He died in 2003, aged 93. It is his heirs who have now parted with the Cap d'Antibes estate.

A neighbour since 1870

For the buyer, the estate is next door. Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc stands on the southern tip of Cap d'Antibes and is one of the best-known hotels on the French Riviera. Its history began in 1870, when the main building opened as a private mansion named Villa Soleil; it became a hotel in 1889. The Eden-Roc pavilion, by the water, was added in 1914.

Rudolf August Oetker first saw the hotel in 1964, while sailing past Cap d'Antibes with his wife, Maja, according to the Oetker group's own history; the family bought it a few years later. Today the hotel has 111 guest rooms spread across Villa Soleil, the Eden-Roc pavilion and the Les Deux Fontaines residence. It is a seasonal house, open from spring until the autumn.

Villas already part of the offer

Private houses are not new territory for the hotel. Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc already rents out standalone villas, as Challenges also notes, and the hotel's own website presents them, among them Villa La Guettière, as an alternative to the rooms in the main building.

Twelve hotels in the family's hands

The Oetker group's hotel arm, controlled by Alfred and Carl Ferdinand Oetker according to Challenges, operates twelve luxury hotels. Alongside Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc, the portfolio includes Le Bristol in Paris, Apogée in Courchevel and Mas-Bellevue in Saint-Tropez.

With this purchase, the group adds a large neighbouring estate to a presence on Cap d'Antibes that goes back more than half a century. Estates of this size, with their own access to the sea, rarely change hands on the peninsula, which is why the sale already ranks among the largest on the Côte d'Azur in recent years.