Cristiano Ronaldo Makes 37m EUR Investment in Hotels
Soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo and Portuguese hotel operator Grupo Pestana SGPS plan to invest €75m euros ($81 million) in four boutique hotels with a total of 400 rooms in Portugal, Spain and the US, the biggest investment ever for the footballer.
The first two hotels will open next year on the Portuguese island of Madeira and in Lisbon, Ronaldo said Thursday at a press conference. The third and fourth are scheduled to open in Madrid and New York City in 2017, he said.
"This is the biggest project of my life," Ronaldo, 30, told reporters. "It's an investment in a completely different area, but as you can imagine the goal is to take care of my future and the future of my son."
Ronaldo will invest half of the sum and own 50% of the joint venture, according to Dionisio Pestana, the group's chairman. The soccer star, who won FIFA's player of the year three times, purchased an apartment in the Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue for $18.5 million earlier in 2015, the New York Post reported in August, without saying how it got the information.
"I'm and ambitious person and a fighter," Ronaldo said. "Obviously this is a completely different world. My world is playing soccer but we all know that life won't always be like this."
Madeira-based Grupo Pestana is Portugal's biggest hotel operator. Ronaldo was also born in Madeira, which is home to the Cristiano Ronaldo museum.
Under the name of Ronaldo's 'CR7' brand, the hotels will span four cities closely linked to Ronaldo's life: his hometown Funchal, Lisbon where he first started his youth career, Madrid for his tenure with the famed Spanish club, and New York where he's considering the Major League Soccer.
The Portuguese native will become a shareholder of Pestana's international hotel chain, which will mark his first investment outside of fashion and sport.
The $40 million injection will make a small dent into Ronaldo's personal fortune of $223 million, according to soccer publication Goal, which ranked him as the world's wealthiest player this year.
Ronaldo explains the hotel idea first came about during a casual conversation with the company in his native Madeira, an archipelago of four islands facing the Moroccan coast. A personal connection with chief executive Dionisio Pestana, whose father founded the Pestana Group, sweetened the deal.
"In my opinion, he's the best guy to do business with in Portugal," Ronaldo said. "He's from Madeira too, so it was a good partnership. He has experience, not just in Portugal but all over the world...Dionisio is the number one [in hotels] and I'm the number one in football so, we have everything."
"I'm 100% sure that this is going to be different from others because of my name, the way I live, my ambitions, Dionisio's ambition too…. Between this base of people—people who like me, the people who follow me—I think we have all the ingredients to do it."
Ronaldo was thrust into the spotlight when he signed with Manchester United in 2003. He played with the 'Red Devils' until 2009, during which he won three Premier League titles and a UEFA Champions League trophy, before moving to Real Madrid. There, he became the all-time leading goal scorer in the European Champions League, ahead of Barcelona striker and rival Lionel Messi.
Ronaldo has played for his national side 123 times and is a two-time Ballon d'Or winner, seen as the game's ultimate accolade. Only Messi has won it more times with three trophies. This year, Ronaldo's life with his son Cristiano was the subject of a documentary movie.
