Mozambican businessman pays €42 million for luxury hotel in Lisbon

The domestic hotel market continues to stir and attract more and more foreign interest. The Spanish chain Fontecruz Hotels has sold The Fontecruz Lisboa Hotel, on Avenida da Liberdade, for €42 million, reports ECO. The deal was closed at the end of June, and the buyer is Carlos Camurdine, one of Mozambique’s biggest businessmen, owner of the Socimpex wine shop.

It is at number 138 on one of the most expensive avenues in the capital that this five-star unit is located, which opened in 2012. The hotel has 72 rooms, an interior garden, a fitness club and a restaurant.

ECO obtained from sources in the real estate market that Fontecruz Lisboa was sold in June for around €42 million. The buyer is Carlos Camurdine, owner of the Socimpex wine shop.

This purchase has already brought changes to the company that owns the hotel, Hotel Project Lisboa. In June, Spaniards Julio Ortega Zurdo, Diego Ortega Martin (CEO) and Julio Hugo Martin Ortega resigned from their positions on the board of directors, which now includes Carlos Camurdine as chairman and Yasmin Camrudim (a partner in Socimpex) as a member, according to information published on Portal da Justiça.

ECO also knows that the hotel will change its name soon and that the new owners have a new project for that hotel on the table. ECO contacted Fontecruz Hotels to understand the reasons for this operation, but until the publication of this article there was no reply.

Carlos Camurdine, aged 63, is one of the most influential businessmen in Mozambique, according to the press in that country, and was under the media spotlight in 2019 when he was kidnapped. On April 3 of that year, the partner of Socimpex was kidnapped by three armed men outside his establishment in the centre of Maputo. He was released about two months later, after a ransom was paid.

Fontecruz Hotels was founded in 2004 in Spain, and its present in Seville, Granada, Toledo, Ávila and Lisbon.