Hyatt Hotels Corporation has announced an agreement for a Hyatt affiliate to acquire London-based Mr & Mrs Smith, a platform offering direct booking access to a collection of more than 1,500 boutique and luxury properties.

Hyatt will acquire 100 percent of the asset-light Mr & Mrs Smith platform for an enterprise value of £53 million in cash consideration.

The planned acquisition of Mr & Mrs Smith is expected to build Hyatt’s leadership position in luxury and strengthen its distribution capabilities, especially across Europe.

“We are excited by this planned acquisition and to explore bringing guests and World of Hyatt members even more global luxury offering across hundreds of geographies – including over 20 countries where there are currently no Hyatt hotels such as Fiji, Croatia, Iceland and Anguilla,” said Mark Vondrasek, chief commercial officer, Hyatt. “Founders Tamara and James Lohan alongside their impressive team have built the ultimate global direct booking collection of truly unique stay experiences including rooms located in treehouses, within caves, and underwater suites. Importantly, we see a lot of synergy between our collective ethos of care, and we look forward to working together to bring our shared focus to new, memorable stay experiences for guests and World of Hyatt members – and introduce new guests to Hyatt hotels around the world.”

The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of this year, subject to customary closing conditions.

At a later date following the closing, Hyatt plans to unveil direct booking access to properties within the Mr & Mrs Smith platform through Hyatt’s distribution channels, including Hyatt.com and the World of Hyatt app.

The anticipated move will have the potential to unlock access to more than twice the number of global boutique and luxury properties within Hyatt direct booking channels, and Hyatt is exploring ways to enable World of Hyatt members to earn and redeem points across eligible hotels in the Mr & Mrs Smith collection.

Following the planned acquisition close, more than 100 Mr & Mrs Smith employees are expected to join Hyatt’s Commercial Services team, including Tamara Lohan who will serve as Mr & Mrs Smith CEO, reporting to Mark Vondrasek, Hyatt’s chief commercial officer, and James Lohan will will serve as Mr & Mrs Smith chief creative officer.