Mövenpick Dubai sale fetches Kingdom Holding $95m

Kingdom Holding Investments has sold the five-star Mövenpick Hotel in Bur Dubai to unidentified investors.

Saudi Prince Al Waleed’s Kingdom Holding has sold a Dubai hotel for US$95 million.

Dubai-based Kingdom Hotel Investments (KHI), a unit of Kingdom Holding, closed the sale of the five-star Mövenpick Hotel and Apartments in Bur Dubai to unidentified investors on Sunday. It has 255 rooms and 57 apartments.

“The sale is a testament to the economic robustness of Dubai and to the buoyant merger and acquisition environment in the hospitality sector here,” said Sarmad Zok, the chairman and chief executive of KHI and a member of Kingdom Holding Company’s (KHC) board of directors.

Kingdom Holding had assets worth 15.3 billion Saudi riyals (Dh14.97bn) available for sale at the end of September, up from 13.6 billion riyals year-on-year – the majority of them overseas.

Last year, KHI sold its Mövenpick Resort and Spa Mauritius to Hawaii-based Outrigger Hotels and Resorts for $40 million.

KHI focuses on acquiring and developing hotels and resorts in high-growth emerging markets such as the Middle East, Asia and Africa. It has interests in 18 hotels across luxury hotel operators such as Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, Fairmont Raffles Holding International and InterContinental.

Kingdom Holding’s portfolio comprises 22 properties globally such as the George V Four Seasons Hotel in Paris, The Plaza Fairmont in New York, the Savoy Hotel in London, the Four Seasons Hotel in Toronto and the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco.

While online Dubai property sites have some properties within the midscale sector for sale, the Mövenpick sale would be one of the few transactions in the luxury market that have been in the news.

An asset management division of Bank Muscat made its first overseas investment by acquiring 294-room Mövenpick Hotel, Jumeirah Beach Residence in Dubai in June.

Arabian Gulf investors continue to acquire assets overseas. Dubai’s Al Habtoor Group, which owns the Waldorf Astoria Palm Jumeirah and the InterContinental Hotel Budapest, bought the President Abraham Lincoln hotel in Illinois that is branded under Hilton’s DoubleTree.