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3rd time lucky but listing Down Under
M&L Hospitality could beat Mantra to list on ASX
BRIDGET CARTER THE AUSTRALIAN JANUARY 28, 2014 12:00AM
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THERE are signals in the market that M&L Hospitality could beat Mantra to list on the Australian Securities Exchange, with chatter in the last week that investment bank CIMB is sounding out fund managers about their investment interest in a local listing.
The company is run by Singapore tycoon Michael Kum and owns a collection of Australian hotels, including the Four Points by Sheraton in Sydney's Darling Harbour.
Listed hotel companies have previously been seen as less attractive to Australian investors, given their exposure to the volatile tourism sector, and have been a more favoured choice with those in Singapore.
However, some Australian hotel markets have recently been performing strongly, with reports of a lift in corporate bookings this month, as the dollar falls and consumer sentiment improves.
It is understood that M&L has a listing in either Australia or Singapore up for discussion.
Kum paid $54 million for Travelodge Docklands in Melbourne in 2011, $90m for Sydney's Swissotel in 2010 and $185m for Sydney's Four Points by Sheraton at Darling Harbour in 2009, and a move to list his company in Australia would create the only public hotel owner since the $410m takeover of Thakral Holdings by Brookfield in 2012.
Brookfield placed some properties in the Thakral portfolio on the market last year, but did not sell all of the assets, and questions remain around Brookfield's intentions for the $600m Australian hotel portfolio it secured through the Thakral transaction.
A listing by Kum's company could be followed later in the year by hotel operator Mantra after the company was withdrawn from a sales campaign in 2012. The owners of the company, CVC Asia Pacific and UBS, had hoped Mantra would attract bids above $400m. Archer Capital was one of the two main contenders for the business, with an offer of $350m.
Meanwhile, Australasia's largest serviced apartment group, Quest, has been moving to sell its development pipeline to an institutional partner.
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http://www.businesstimes.com.sg/premium/...l-20140716
PUBLISHED JULY 16, 2014
M&L Hospitality to build Manchester hotel
Complex in university campus to cost over £30m
BYMINDY TAN
tanmindy@sph.com.sg @MindyTanBT
SINGAPORE-BASED M&L Hospitality is expanding further into the United Kingdom, with plans for a new hotel complex estimated to cost in excess of £30 million (S$64 million), in the University of Manchester campus.
The plan, according to the investment group which has taken a 125-year lease on the university land, is for a 326-key hotel complex comprising 16 storeys of rooms above three levels of hotel facilities including conference facilities and various F&B concepts.
This will be the only hotel on the main University of Manchester campus. United Kingdom property company Bruntwood will develop the hotel on behalf of M&L Hospitality while Cycas Hospitality, which is M&L's operator for their Stratford City hotels, will manage the business.
Said Neil Maxwell, chief executive officer of M&L Hospitality: "We are always exploring investment opportunities that have the potential to deliver stable and attractive returns. The UK hotel market continues to achieve solid performance and we are excited about the growth of internationally branded hotels here."
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M&L of Singapore swoops on Sydney hotel site
Samantha Hutchinson
[Image: sam_hutchinson.png]
Property Writer
Ben Wilmot
[Image: ben_wilmot.png]
Commercial Property Editor
Sydney
[Image: 290489-235e9b68-52b4-11e5-9108-e3723a561ad5.jpg]
M&L Hospitality executive chairman Michael Kum. Source: News Limited
[b]Singapore’s Kum family-owned M&L Hospitality is poised to add to its burgeoning Sydney hospitality portfolio as it trains its sights on a former electricity substation that can accommodate a major hotel development near the Barangaroo precinct.[/b]
M&L Hospitality, which is already undertaking a $US220-million ($320m) redevelopment of the nearby Four Points by Sheraton and adjoining conference centre, is well positioned to join the rush to bring new hotels to Sydney.
Lend Lease backed by tycoon Jerry Schwartz, along with China’s Greenland Group and Dalian Wanda Group, all have major projects under way, and other developers are planning a series of boutique projects as the city’s hotels perform strongly.
Now, M&L has swooped on a development site at 65-79 Sussex Street that has been owned by Alfasi Property Development in a direct deal worth just over $22m.
Alfasi was in the midst of securing development approval for the site, which houses a decommissioned electricity hub. It planned to convert the 1180sq m site into Quest serviced apartments, on a 21-year lease.
M&L Hospitality chief executive Neil Maxwell declined to comment about the site purchase, which Knight Frank marketed in 2014, while vendor Alfasi did not return a call.
If a deal is finalised, it will add to M&L Hospitality’s packed development pipeline in Sydney, which includes the near-complete multi-million-dollar upgrade of its Swissotel on Market Street.
While the Sussex Street site had been slated to become a building of Quest serviced apartments, property executives said M&L Hospitality was likely to consider other plays, noting the group was largely a pure-play hotel investor.
M&L, which has been flexing its development muscle, was considering a Sydney listing in late 2013 after putting a planned initial public offering in Singapore on hold in 2012.
The group has since refurbished DoubleTree by Hilton Melbourne and is now undertaking works on the Hilton Auckland in New Zealand.
M&L has alsopicked up a major development site in Melbourne’s Southbank, proposing a 73 level mixed-use tower that includes 482 residential apartments and a 390-bed hotel.
Sydney has become a focus for boutique projects with hotel aspects.
Alfasi is selling another substation development site at 183-185 Clarence Street. The site opposite the Grace Hotel has a development application in place for both a hotel scheme and a residential development.
At 143 York Street, Taiwanese hotel operator Yeh’s Family Holdings has submitted plans to convert a nine-storey office block into a luxury hotel after it picked up the building for $21.25m earlier this year.
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M&L Hospitality chases Sydney tenants in $350m add-on
Samantha Hutchinson
[Image: sam_hutchinson.png]
Property Writer
[b]Hotel owner and developer M&L Hospitality has added nearly 500 rooms to its European portfolio in two deals that come as the company develops out assets ahead of reconsidering float plans.[/b]
The Singapore-based investment group, controlled by the Kum family, has paid more than £40 million ($88m) for the 350-room Heathrow Hotel on Bath Road near London’s Heathrow Airport.
It has also picked up the 142-room Park Inn by Radisson in the Belgian capital of Brussels, which sits at the terminus of the Eurostar railway.
“We’re expanding, but most of our activity is in the European market at this point where we can see a couple of really attractive opportunities,” M&L chief executive Neil Maxwell told The Australian.
“We’re obviously continuing to look at the (IPO) market, but we’re not in that mode at the moment. The plan for us is to get the Four Points (in Sydney) completed and other refurbishments before we consider anything.”
M&L is midway through a $350m expansion at Sydney’s Sheraton Four Points, that will make the hotel Sydney’s largest, with over 900 rooms and an adjoining boutique office tower called One Wharf Lane.
The tower is pitched at tech groups and banks with the drawcard stunning views of Darling Harbour and mid-sized floorplates in a new building. But it could even draw a major bank, with the Commonwealth Bank, which occupies a tower directly opposite, tipped as a potential mover.
M&L will focus on tenants with leases that expire next year. The likes of Uber, Schroders and search agency Indeed, which all have requirements for around 1500sq m, could be targeted.
Cloud-based service provider ServiceNow, that has a 4500sq m requirement, and digital media industry group AIMIA with a 1500sq m requirement, are also expected to look at the tower.
“Our target occupiers are technology groups and emerging enterprise — those with vision and foresight that want adaptive and flexible workspaces,” Knight Frank leading director Scott Berriman said.
Mr Maxwell acknowledged the office tower is a break from the group’s traditional modus operandi, but believes the office component is a good complement for a corner of the city with little A-Grade office space. He said the group could replicate it in other developments as leasing picked up.
“I think there’s a lot of companies, and tech companies in particular, that are looking to take decent sized space such as Apple and Dropbox ... there’s a lot of interesting companies looking for 1500sq m to 2000sq m, and they want a big floorplate,” he said.
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Sheraton, Hilton on the market for $1.5bn
[img=650x0]http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/eba0fd3dc9cd4a0e188864ef2581af9e?width=650[/img]
M&L Hospitality’s One Wharf Lane boutique commercial tower adjoining the Sheraton Four Points Hotel at Darling Harbour.
[*]
A string of landmark hotels, including Sydney’s Sheraton Four Points and Melbourne’s Hilton DoubleTree, will be placed on the market as M&L Hospitality offloads its $1.5 billion-plus Australian and New Zealand hotels arm.
The Singapore-based Kum family have pulled the trigger on the biggest sale process in local hotel circles for more than a decade, appointing Rothschild and UBS to market six hotel assets in one line.
The hotels include Melbourne’s Travelodge Docklands, the Hilton Auckland, Christchurch’s Chateau on the Park, and Sydney’s Swissotel. The sale is expected to fetch a record price for an Australian hotels portfolio.
The planned deal comes at the end of a year in which the property sector has been dominated by large-scale portfolio sales to offshore buyers. It also represents the emergence of the hotels market as one of the property sectors’ best-performing asset classes.
The 2089-room portfolio generates annual earnings of more than $100 million and accounts for more than 18 per cent of Sydney’s CBD hotel market.
The sale process comes as a surprise for the family-owned company, which has long been tipped as a candidate for a listing on either the Singapore Stock Exchange or the Australian Securities Exchange. The trust was promoted to Singaporean investors with a market capitalisation of about $609m and hotel values have since surged.
The group has confirmed the process, but maintains it is not wedded to a sale. “M&L Hospitality is continually considering all options to maximise the value of its portfolio,” a spokesman said, adding, “there is never any assurance that any of such discussions will result in a definitive agreement or transaction”.
M&L also emphasised that the move does not constitute an exit from the Australian market, arguing it is a sale of stabilised assets, and that the group is retaining assets, including a Sydney hotel development site at 65 Sussex Street near Barangaroo, in addition to the One Wharf Lane commercial building adjoining the Sheraton Four Points.
Property executives expect the portfolio will achieve the same interest and high sales prices as other recent hotel sales, including Sydney’s Sheraton on the Park, Hilton and Westin GPO, which have all attracted record room-key rates to Asia-based groups.
A falling Australian dollar stoking overseas arrivals to the major gateway cities has prompted a flood of domestic and international investment into the hotel sector, from the likes of offshore developers and the swelling ranks of Asian insurance companies.
Foreign buyers made up more than 60 per cent of the total $3.7bn in hotel transactions recorded for the year to September, with the sector sitting as real estate’s best performer, delivering returns of 14.2 per cent, compared to 12.9 per cent for industrial, and retail at below 11.1 per cent. Overnight stays are also on the rise locally.
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