Riccione’s historic Grand Hotel sold at auction

It took 16 rounds of bidding between two participants before the historic Grand Hotel in Riccione – built in 1929 on the seafront, commissioned by the Milanese entrepreneur and Commendatore Luigi Gaetano Ceschina from the architect Rutilio Ceccolini of Pesaro – was finally sold, sold for over 29.3 million euros against a reserve price set at 24 million and 864 thousand euros. If no higher bids are received within 10 days compared to the sale price realised at auction, the purchase will be finalised; otherwise, the judge may reopen the proceedings.

The Grand Hotel in Riccione has been at the centre of a controversial inheritance dispute and an investigation by the Guardia di Finanza, which resulted in its seizure following bankruptcy. Owned by the Ceschina family, it had been bequeathed by the widow to her ‘godson’, who ran it until 2023, the year in which bankruptcy was declared. On 28 July, the Rimini Public Prosecutor’s Office placed the property under criminal seizure and launched an investigation into fraudulent bankruptcy against the former director, Gianni Andreatta, and a number of associates and figureheads. According to the Guardia di Finanza, although the hotel was closed, it was still being used and rooms were being sold to tourists. Andreatta, in fact, after years of opaque management – during which a young North African man died in the swimming pool in 2022 – is said to have accumulated debts totalling 25 million euros.

The investigation by the Guardia di Finanza, which subsequently led to the seizure of the Grand Hotel, had been launched precisely because the management of Marebello SpA – headed by Andreatta along with five other directors – had refused to hand the property back to the insolvency administrators, precisely in anticipation of the auction. Last July, in fact, the finance police officers who sealed the premises had also had to relocate a small group of guests and tourists to other hotels in Riccione. Following the seizure, the property was handed over to the receivers, and today the Court has ordered its sale by auction as a single lot comprising the ‘Grand Hotel’, ‘Villa Bianca’, the ‘Magazzini’, including a restaurant, shop and flats, the famous ‘Torre 900’ with flats and an office, and ‘Villa Bruna’ with a restaurant and nightclub; covering a registered area of 11,731 square metres right in the centre of Riccione. According to rumours, the property is set to be acquired – pending the finalisation of the procedure – by a limited liability company (srl) based in Rimini, which is said to have already purchased the Bertazzoni holiday camp in Riccione, a beachfront property, for 3 million euros.