A team from Herbert Smith Freehills Paris LLP has recently advised leading French construction company Eiffage on the sale of the Grand Hotel-Dieu de Lyon to Crédit Agricole Assurances, in association with Crédit Agricole Centre Est Regional Bank.

Crédit Agricole Assurances and Caisse régionale de Crédit Agricole Centre Est recently announced their acquisition of the Grand Hotel-Dieu in Lyon – all of which has status as a listed 'historical monument' – from Eiffage. At the same time, InterContinental Hotels Group has announced that they have signed for their fifth InterContinental hotel in France: the InterContinental Lyon Hotel-Dieu, which will be part of the Grand Hotel-Dieu complex.

This development project covers over 51,500m2 and currently represents the largest private transaction ever in France for the conversion of a listed historical monument.

The authorisation to carry out construction work on a listed historical monument (in lieu of a building permit) was obtained in June 2013 for a worksite scheduled to start up in the spring of 2015 and to end in 2018. When completed, the site will host 17,100m2 of shops and restaurants, 13,600m2 in office space, a 143-room, five-star InterContinental hotel (13,500m2), a Convention Centre (2,500m2), residential space (1,000m2), and an international centre for gastronomy, the Cité Internationale de la Gastronomie (3,600m2, not included in the acquisition).

The management of the InterContinental Lyon Hotel-Dieu will be handled by IHG under a management agreement with Crédit Agricole Assurances. The future hotel will be added to a brand portfolio that already boasts the InterContinental Paris - Le Grand, the InterContinental Marseille Hotel Dieu, the InterContinental Paris - Avenue Marceau and the InterContinental Carlton Cannes.

Eiffage Immobilier and Generim were involved as co-developers. The operation was entrusted to the architects Albert Constantin and Claire Bertrand (AIA Associés), and head architect for Historical Monuments Didier Repellin.

The vehicle for the acquisition will be an OPCI (French real estate investment scheme) to be managed by Crédit Agricole Immobilier.

Eiffage was advised on the acquisition by Herbert Smith Freehills, with a team made up of Pierre Popesco (partner), Florence Chérel (partner), Jérome Le Berre (of counsel), Michel Koutsomanis and Arnaud Bergeot for the property law and corporate law aspects, and Céline Bey (of counsel) and Julie Roussel for the intellectual property aspects. Eiffage was also advised by Etude Ginon as notaire.

Crédit Agricole Assurances was advised by De Pardieu Brocas Maffei.

Intercontinental was advised by DLA Piper.