Lodgis Buys Two Raffles Assets in Cambodia

Date: July 2018

Location: Phnom Penh, adjacent to the US Embassy and Siem Reap’s French Quarter, Angkor Wat, Cambodia

Name: Raffles Hotel Le Royal Phnom Penh and Raffles Grand Hotel d’Angkor Siem Reap

No. of Keys: 173 & 119

Seller: The Raffles Hotels were originally built in the 1930’s. They reopened under the Raffles brand in 1997 following a major restoration program.

Buyer: Singapore-based Lodgis Hospitality Holdings. The company now has the largest collection of luxury historic assets in the Indochina region.

Established in November 2016 by Warburg Pincus, VinaCapital, and VinaCapital’s founder, Don Lam, Lodgis is a fully integrated hotel platform targeting the development, acquisition, and management of hospitality assets across Southeast Asia.

As a part of its formation, Lodgis was initial seeded with approximately $300 million of capital commitments from Warburg Pincus and VinaCapital along with best-in-class hospitality assets including the Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi (The Metropole) and Fusion Hotels & Resorts, the leading domestic hotel company in Vietnam.

As a wholly owned and captive brand, Fusion develops, owns and manages beachside resorts and city hotels throughout Vietnam under the highly acclaimed Fusion and Fusion Suites brands as well as new concepts including the Fusion Retreats and Fusion Originals.

Following the success of its flagship resorts, Fusion Maia Da Nang and Fusion Resort Cam Ranh, Fusion is uniquely positioned as one of the few fully vertically-integrated hospitality companies in the region which has allowed it to quickly scale its concepts and brands throughout Vietnam.

“We are very excited with the acquisition of the two historic Raffles hotels in Cambodia,” Lodgis CEO Peter Meyer said.

“Together with the Metropole in Hanoi, Lodgis now owns an irreplaceable Indochina heritage hotel portfolio that allows us to achieve significant synergies on both marketing and operations to better serve the rapidly-developing tourism market across Indochina.

We see tremendous upside potential for both assets with a highly targeted capital expenditure program to transform the hotels back to their grand stature.

Given our close working relationship with Accor as well as our strong in-house expertise, we are confident the hotels will create long-term value for Lodgis and be very well positioned for the overall Indochina market.”

The company has expanded its portfolio in the last 18 months to include more than 15 projects in operation and under development in gateway cities and international tourist destinations across the Indochina region.

Warburg Pincus LLC is a leading global private equity firm focused on growth investing.

The firm has more than US$44 billion in private equity assets under management. The firm’s active portfolio of more than 150 companies is highly diversified by stage, sector and geography.

Founded in 1966, Warburg Pincus has raised 17 private equity funds, which have invested more than $60 billion in over 800 companies in more than 40 countries.

The firm is headquartered in New York with offices in Amsterdam, Beijing, Hong Kong, London, Luxembourg, Mumbai, Mauritius, San Francisco, Sao Paulo, Shanghai, and Singapore.

Founded in 2003, VinaCapital is a leading investment and asset management firm headquartered in Vietnam, with a diversified portfolio of USD1.8 billion in assets under management.

The firm has two closed-ended funds that trade on the London Stock Exchange: The VinaCapital Vietnam Opportunity Fund Limited, which trades on the Main Market, and VinaLand Limited which trades on the AIM.

VinaCapital also manages the Forum One – VCG Partners Vietnam Fund, one of Vietnam’s largest open-ended UCITS-compliant funds, the Vietnam Equity Special Access Fund, numerous segregated accounts, and two domestic funds. VinaCapital also has joint ventures with Draper Fisher Jurvetson in venture capital, and Warburg Pincus in hospitality and lodging.

THPT Comment: Some pretty serious companies here, formed to take advantage of the growing tourist activity in the country and the wider regional area.

First Seen: Hotel News Now