There is now an investor for the former Hilton Hotel Frankfurt Gravenbruch. The purchase contracts have already been signed. But there is still a significant problem from the authorities.
The British real estate developer Comer Group International has legally signed the purchase contracts for the insolvent luxury hotel Frankfurt Gravenbruch.
The EU sanctions against the Iranian co-owner Ali Ansari are currently preventing the release of funds and approval for the sale of the hotel by the German authorities.
The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Ansari as a major donor to the Iranian leader, which allegedly led to the withdrawal of the Hilton hotel chain and the delisting of the hotel from the booking platform Booking.com.
Dusseldorf. According to insolvency administrator Joachim Kühne, the insolvent luxury hotel Frankfurt Gravenbruch has found a buyer: the British real estate developer Comer Group International. “The purchase contracts have already been signed and legally binding,” Kühne said in a statement.
Kühne spoke of the Comer Group as a “powerful investor”. The real estate company has “decades of experience in the real estate and hotel business.” This means there is now “a concrete opportunity to save the traditional hotel and more than 100 jobs”.
According to its own information, the Comer Group has been active in Europe since 2006 and has since acquired shopping centers, office buildings, commercial space and residential building sites. According to the company website, it owns, among other things, the high-rise “Die Pyramide” in the Marzahn-Hellersdorf district of Berlin. However, there is still a significant obstacle to the takeover: European sanctions law.
A co-owner of the hotel in Gravenbruch, the Iranian businessman Ali Ansari, has been under sanctions by the European Union (EU) since July 30th. The EU accuses Ansari of supporting the Iranian regime and the Revolutionary Guard. Business relationships with the Iranians are therefore prohibited. Ansari's lawyer has not yet responded to Handelsblatt's questions.
As a result of the EU sanctions, the German authorities have frozen the luxury hotel's funds, and insolvency administrator Joachim Kühne also has no access to them. A sale of the hotel is also only possible with the approval of the authorities.
In addition to the Bundesbank, the Federal Office of Economics and Export Control (BAFA) and the Central Office for Sanctions Enforcement (ZfS) of the General Customs Directorate are involved. A spokesman for the ZfS recently told the Handelsblatt that nothing could be said about specific individual cases. Bafa also “did not want to comment on any individual export processes with a view to operational and business secrets”.
Kühne again called on the authorities to allow the sale. “It would be hardly comprehensible if this future perspective were to fail because of the sanctions, even though the assets are under my control under insolvency law and sanctioned persons have no access to them.”
The preliminary insolvency proceedings of the owner and operating companies behind the hotel were initiated on July 23, about a week before the EU sanction.
However, the EU's measure was not the first against Ali Ansari: Great Britain had already imposed sanctions against the Iranian businessman in autumn 2025. In January 2026, the EU classified the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization.
The measures are said to have persuaded the booking platform Booking.com to remove hotels with suspected connections to Ansari from its offerings. Ultimately, Gravenbruch was thrown out by the world's largest provider.
On July 10, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Ansari as a “major donor” to Iranian Supreme Leader Modshtaba Khamenei. US companies should end business with Ansari's company Smart Global Limited, one of the shareholders of the hotel in Gravenbruch, by August 9th. The US hotel chain Hilton terminated the contract and moved out at the end of August.
The hotel has not accommodated any guests since mid-August and continues to operate in emergency mode. The insolvency proceedings were opened on October 1st. According to Kühne, the money from the bankruptcy estate will last for about a month from this point on.
Kühne sees prospects for the hotel above all in a sale. “It is now up to the responsible authorities to pave the way for the takeover through the necessary approvals,” said the insolvency administrator.
