Ho Bee / Nobel Design

Ho Bee / Nobel Design: both companies are halted today. The Business Times notes that a deal could be in the offing for Ho Bee's Hotel Windsor in the MacPherson area. Negotiations are said to be at an advanced stage, with the price of the freehold asset thought to be ~$163m (or ~$724k per key). This compares with the recent sale of Hotel Grand Pacific along Victoria Street which is estimated to be sold at around $850k – 900k per key. According to mkt talk, the potential buyer is a consortium comprising several players, which may include Nobel Design; Lian Huat Group; Von Lee, chairman of Expand Construction; and Steel Industries boss David Ong. The four are the shareholders of the consortium that developed the One Dusun project in Balestier, which recently sold like hot cakes. Ho Bee paid $41m for the property, formerly known as Great Eastern Hotel, in Aug 1999. At the time, the co that owned the asset was under receivership. Hotel Windsor is on a site zoned for hotel use under Master Plan 2008, but its plot ratio is not stated. BT understands the existing gfa area is 156.4k sf, which works out to 2.87 times the land area of 54.4k sf. The first four levels of the nine-storey property are occupied by a retail podium (~45k sf NLA), while the upper levels house 225 hotel rooms. The property also has 174 carpark lots in the basement. In FY11, the hotel's operations generated gross revenue of ~ $8.1. Market watchers say the hotel's rooms are fairly large compared with newer hotels built in the past few years and hence, there is potential for the new owner to undertake some reconfiguration and increase the number of rooms. In addition, there is potential for strata titling the commercial space and selling it, to tap the current strong demand for such space.