European real estate investment platform Henderson Park has acquired two Hilton-operated hotels in London and Birmingham – signalling the group’s entry to the rapidly-growing UK hotel market.

The deal, believed to be worth around £500m (US$646m, €545m), will see Henderson Park take control of two of the UK’s largest hotels.

The Hilton London Metropole is the capital’s second largest hotel by room count and one of Hilton’s flagship hotels, housing 1,059 bedrooms and 42 conference and meeting rooms.

The 790-bedroom Hilton Birmingham Metropole is the UK’s largest hotel outside London and the UK’s largest conference hotel by delegate capacity, with 33 banquet and meeting rooms for up to 2,000 delegates.

Henderson Park acquired the hotels from Tonstate Group, which bought them in 2006 for £417m (US$539m, €456m).

Hilton will continue to operate the two properties, while Henderson Park’s asset management team will look to “further enhance the hotels’ value over the medium to long-term,” signalling the potential for design enhancements.

Henderson Park was formed by former Goldman Sachs executive Nick Weber last year.

Weber said: “We’ve acquired two of the UK’s largest hotels and are thrilled to mark our entry to the UK hotels market.

“While the additions to our portfolio provide us with assets of substantial scale and pre-eminence in prime locations in the UK’s top two cities, they also offer a number of opportunities to enhance value through our own asset management.”

Jones Day acted for Henderson Park and CBRE acted for Tonstate.

The purchase of the two properties follows Henderson Park’s investments in Paris, France, where it bought Le MéridienÉtoile – the city’s largest hotel – and Greece, where it has acquired The Ledra, a five-star hotel in Athens.