Due diligence on three state owned hotels
View(s):The Ministry of Public Enterprise Development is doing a due diligence on the three state hotels including Hilton, Grand Hyatt and Grand Oriental, which has come on the back on Prime Minister Wickremesinghe’s statement recently saying that offers will be invited from investors to invest in these hotels, according to ministry officials. “We are calculating what value can be attributed to these hotels and initially will be doing the due diligence on Grand Hyatt and Grand Oriental. The due diligence on the Hilton will be done later as it is going through a renovation,” an official told the Business Times. He said that of the Grand Hyatt and Grand Oriental, the ministry aims to search for an investing partner for the former.
“We will look for a partner for Grand Oriental later on and this will be offered as a heritage hotel,” the official said. Three top Sri Lankan corporates – two in apparel another large family owned tea firm has shown interest in a stake at state owned Hotel Developers PLC, the owning company of Hilton Hotel, he said. According to him, business tycoon Harry Jayawardena is also interested in the Hilton. The plans are to either totally or partially divest all three entities and interested parties can approach the ministry, he said. The Ministry is now in the process of restructuring several key State Owned Enterprises (SOE).