Melbourne-based fund manager Salter Brothers has placed a huge bet on the hotel sector bouncing back strongly in a post-lockdown, vaccinated world after joining forces with two of the world’s biggest real estate investors to buy the Travelodge hotel portfolio from Mirvac and the NRMA for a record $620 million.

Salter Brothers, which manages about $2 billion of assets including hotels such as the InterContinental Melbourne, exchanged contracts on Friday to acquire the 11 Travelodge hotels and more than 2000 rooms for a new hospitality joint venture vehicle backed by Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC and Swiss-based global private equity firm Partners Group.