Singapore groups make beeline for Australian hotels
Singaporean groups are setting a fierce pace in buying up existing city hotels and sites where they can develop new properties across Australia.
In one of the latest plays, Roxy-Pacific Holdings has acquired the six-storey building at 360 Little Bourke St, known as the Melbourne House, in the city’s central business district for $33.02 million.
Roxy-Pacific is a well-known hotelier in Asia and has apartment developments in Sydney. Last month it also took a 45% stake in a venture that bought an office building in Melbourne’s St Kilda Rd for $74.1 million that could be converted in future.
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Roxy-Pacific says it intends to redevelop the Little Bourke St property, which occupies a prime 937sqm site, into a development comprising hotel and retail units. The asset was sold by legal training organisation, the Leo Cussen Centre for Law, which will take a short-term leaseback while it looks for new space. Colliers International’s Matthew Stagg and Trent Hobart handled the deal.
Meanwhile, Singapore’s Chip Eng Seng Corporation has snapped up the Mercure & Ibis Styles Grosvenor Hotel in Adelaide in a $43 million play that boosts its local hospitality empire. The Adelaide hotel has 245 guestrooms, comprising 181 rooms operated under the Mercure brand and 64 economy rooms run as an Ibis Styles. Other facilities include restaurant, bar, conference and function space.
The Mercure Grosvenor Hotel in Adelaide.
The property is managed by Accor and sits in one of the busiest positions in Adelaide’s CBD. Chip Eng Seng executive chairman Raymond Chia said the property was CES’s second hotel buy in Australia in just six months as the group expands its hospitality investment portfolio.
Earlier this year the company bought the 84-room Sebel Mandurah in Perth for $15 million. Built in 2009, the hotel has views across the Mandurah canals.
JLL Hotels & Hospitality Group’s Mark Durran and JLL’s Jamie Guerra brokered the latest sale. The purchaser is yet to reveal its longer-term plans but when the hotel was offered for sale Durran notes the property occupies a strategic site of 3794sqm and has an array of redevelopment options.
The two groups are part of a growing trend of Singaporean players looking to expand their Australian hospitality holdings, with Fragrance growing in Hobart and UOL Group buying in Melbourne this year.
– with Lisa Allen
This article originally appeared on www.theaustralian.com.au/property.
