The Ascott Group (Ascott) said it has bought a serviced residence within London’s ‘Midtown’ region at High Holborn for 43.5 million pounds (US$85.13 million).

Ascott currently leases the property from Land Securities plc and operates it as Citadines London Holborn-Covent Garden.

Land Securities plc is the United Kingdom’s largest real estate investment trust.

Ascott said the 192-unit serviced residence enjoys a great location. Holborn is rapidly becoming a major shopping and office district. The property is a short walk from Covent Garden, one of the liveliest areas in London with many boutiques, theatres, restaurants and clubs. It is also near the city’s business area, across the Holborn Tube Station with easy access to both the Central and Piccadilly underground lines.

Ms Jennie Chua, Ascott’s president & CEO said Europe is an important region for Ascott’s global expansion.

‘We have a global portfolio of 21,000 serviced residence units, 5,600 are in Europe. In the recent year, Ascott has been ramping up its expansion in Europe’s gateway cities and emerging markets,’ she said. — BT newsroom

Source : Business Times - 8 May 2008

CapitaLand’s Ascott unit has bought an existing serviced residence in London for S$116.4 million.

The property is located within London’s ‘Midtown’ region at High Holborn.

Ascott is currently leasing the property from Land Securities, the UK’s largest real estate investment trust.

The property is being operated under the brand name Citadines London Holborn-Covent Garden.

The 192-unit serviced residence is located within a major shopping and office district.

Ascott says Europe is an important region for the company’s global expansion.

The company has a global portfolio of 21,000 serviced residence units, of which 5,600 are in Europe. - CNA/ir

Source : Channel NewsAsia - 8 May 2008

Property developer CapitaLand has completed the compulsory acquisition of the Ascott Group, a serviced-apartments operator.

From 28 April, Ascott becomes an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of the company.

It will be delisted from the Singapore Exchange with effect from 29 April.

CapitaLand said the privatised Ascott will enhance the company’s competitive advantage of having a fully integrated real estate and financial services value chain across sectors.

It will also increase cost savings through greater sharing of services and resources with CapitaLand’s other unlisted business units. - CNA/vm

Source : Channel NewsAsia - 28 Apr 2008

FRASERS Hospitality only opened for business in Japan last month - seven years after the Singapore-based serviced residence owner and management company started spreading its wings overseas.

During those years, Frasers - a wholly owned subsidiary of food and beverage company Fraser & Neave, which has branched aggressively into property development - has acquired more than 5,000 apartments in Asia, India, Europe, Latin America and Russia.

But the late start in Japan was a question of timing, according to Frasers chief executive Choe Peng Sum.

‘We believe the timing is still ideal for us to enter Japan,’ he said. ‘Even international hotels have just recently surfaced in Tokyo - Peninsula, Mandarin Oriental, Four Seasons, Ritz Carlton and Conrad. In fact, the trend has been that the newer five-star international hotels are now starting to enjoy high occupancy, as opposed to existing hotels.’

Occupancy at Frasers’ Fraser Place Shinjuku in Tokyo, which is in its first month of operation, is ‘greater than expected’, according to Mr Choe.

‘Although we have been to Japan since 2004, getting the right project with the right project size and the right location, with the right partners and conditions, takes time,’ he said. ‘To have a close to 200 apartments in Shinjuku, giving the business a good economy of scale, was indeed a wait worth waiting for.’

Some 175 units in the East Tower of Fraser Place Shinjuku have been open to guests since March. Another 209 units in the West Tower are due to be ready in June.

‘We are close to signing a property in Osaka, looking at Yokohama, and also a second property in Tokyo, which together will make Frasers Hospitality the largest international serviced residences player in Japan,’ Mr Choe said.

Explaining Frasers’ foray there, he said: ‘Japan is an attractive market. There is growing demand for premium serviced residences as a result of investments by foreign and Japanese companies. Both are making frequent inter-city travel. Demand for serviced residences exceeds supply.’

But land, despite the decline in prices in recent years, remains very expensive, Mr Choe pointed out.

Source : Business Times - 24 Apr 2008

IT HAS been 28 years since Singapore’s listed UOL Group launched its last serviced apartment property, the Parkroyal Residences at Beach Road.

EXTRA PERKS: The Pan Pacific Serviced Suites will come with additional luxury perks, like round-the-clock personal assistants. — PHOTO: PAN PACIFIC

Now, it is entering the luxury extended-stay business with the launch of its new property, Pan Pacific Serviced Suites, at 96 Somerset Road.

The new property is similar to serviced apartments but has additional luxury features such as round-the-clock personal assistants who can provide guests with local connections to business and social events.

The property is the first of five planned serviced suites that UOL is also planning in China, Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand over the next three years, said Mr Gwee Lian Kheng, group president and chief executive of UOL yesterday.

UOL’s wholly-owned unit Pan Pacific Hospitality, which owns the Pan Pacific Hotels and Resorts group of hotels, yesterday unveiled the luxury serviced suites.

The 16-storey building next to the Somerset MRT Station houses 120 one- or two-bedroom suites and six penthouses, ranging from 527 sq ft to 1,689 sq ft in size.

UOL believes demand for luxury serviced suites will rise as the number of international visitors to the region increases.

According to the Pacific Asia Travel Association, the Asia-Pacific region saw 361.7 million visitors last year, a jump of 7.9 per cent from the year before.

Mr Gwee expects another 6 to 7 per cent rise this year.

He also said some demand should be generated from a spillover effect of the current shortage of hotel rooms in Singapore.

There are at least 26 serviced residences in Singapore with about 3,500 units in all, compared with more than 37,000 hotel rooms.

According to CB Richard Ellis, the occupancy rate for serviced apartments in Singapore was 91.2 per cent in the fourth quarter of last year, an increase of 7.5 per cent from the same period in 2006.

Mr Gwee hopes the suites, constructed at a cost of $150 million, will see an occupancy rate of at least 90 per cent after the first six months.

The suites will launch early next month, and rates will range from $10,000 to $25,000 per month, or from $420 to $1,070 per day for a minimum stay of one week.

This is at a premium of 20 to 25 per cent over the market rate, said Mr Kam Tin Seah, UOL’s senior general manager of investment and strategic development.

Pan Pacific Hospitality plans to launch its second serviced suite in Bangkok a year from now. As a group, UOL also plans to roll out between 15 and 20 new hotels and serviced suites over the next three years.

Source : Straits Times - 6 Mar 2008

The UOL Group has earmarked some $500 million - or a third of its available funds - to expand its hospitality business in Asia-Pacific over the next three years, the group’s president and chief executive Gwee Lian Kheng told BT in an interview.

Lap of luxury: Pan Pacific Serviced Suites is likely to be the only one of its kind, as rising property prices mean that such an offering will be ‘hard to replicate’, says UOL

The property company plans to add some 15-20 hotels and service apartment properties over the next three years, Mr Gwee said.

‘(Right now), if you ask me to put down money, I will put it into hospitality,’ he said.

For Singapore especially, the hospitality sector looks to be the brightest going forward - even as the overall property market takes a breather - Mr Gwee said.

Yesterday, UOL launched its new 126-unit service residence development called Pan Pacific Serviced Suites, which the company hopes will be the first of many service residences under the Pan Pacific brand name.

Five such properties could open in the next three years, Mr Gwee said. Next up is Pan Pacific-branded service residences in Bangkok, which will open in about a year.

In Singapore, Pan Pacific Serviced Suites is likely to be the only one of its kind, as rising property prices mean that such an offering will be ‘hard to replicate’, the company said.

‘Moving forward, our strategy is to look at high growth markets such as China, Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia,’ Mr Gwee said.

The Singapore property, which is located right next to Somerset MRT station, cost the group $38.5 million to build. Guests can check in from early April, and pre-opening interest has been strong, UOL said.

The company explored building a small office, home office (Soho) development on the site, but decided to go with service residences in order to ride on the current international business expansion into Singapore and the corresponding growth in expatriates looking for short-term housing, as well as the chance to grow the Pan Pacific brand.

UOL bought the hotel brand last year in a bid to become a key player in hotel management in the Asia-Pacific region.

The deal brought the Pan Pacific group’s 12 hotels in the US, Canada and Asia into the UOL portfolio, adding some 3,800 rooms.

Now, UOL is looking to take the brand further with its first foray into service residences.

‘Moving into the extended serviced accommodation business is a logical extension of the brand as it is complementary to our current hotel accommodation offering,’ Mr Gwee said.

UOL itself, however, is not a newcomer to the service residences scene. It owns such a property under its Parkroyal brand, which it will maintain as a four-star property.

Pan Pacific Serviced Suites, on the other hand, is slated to be a five-star offering.

UOL also bought a hotel plot at Upper Pickering Street in a government tender in October last year. This ‘may, or may not’ be branded as a Pan Pacific hotel when it is completed by early-2011, Mr Gwee said.

For the overall property market, Mr Gwee said that UOL is ‘cautiously optimistic’ on the back of the sub- prime lending crisis in the US and the resultant credit crunch.

The developer plans to launch its ‘mid-range’ condo Breeze by the East on Upper East Coast Road as soon as it can.

Mr Gwee expects mid- level home prices to climb at least 10 per cent this year, pushed up by en-bloc sellers looking for replacement homes.

UOL shares closed four cents down at $3.65 yesterday.

Source : Business Times - 6 Mar 2008

Property developer UOL Group has unveiled a new luxury serviced apartment, marking its entry into the extended stay business.

Pan Pacific Serviced Suites, located in the Somerset area, will open for business in April. It offers 126 deluxe units, which come with personal assistants to tend to the needs of guests.

Besides waking up to a view of downtown Singapore in an apartment kitted out with designer European furniture, there is also a swimming pool filled with mineral water for one’s use.

Ten personal assistants – trained by the former butler of the King of Jordan – will work around the clock to ensure everything goes smoothly.

It might come as no surprise then that the room rates at Pan Pacific Serviced Suites are 20 to 25 percent higher than those at other luxury serviced apartments in Singapore.

Prices start from S$420 a night in an executive suite to over S$1,000 a night in a two-bedroom penthouse. But UOL is sure there will be takers.

Kam Tin Seah, Senior GM, Investment & Strategic Development, UOL Group, said: “We have arranged at least 20 appointments with our existing top client list that Pan Pacific Hotels and Resorts has, as well as new opportunities that we have identified from the current demand level, so I would say we are confident to keep to at least 75 percent occupancy for six months.”

UOL said the decision to move into the extended stay business is unrelated to the current hotel crunch. But it expects to benefit as demand spills over from hotels to the serviced suites.

UOL plans to roll out five more Pan Pacific Serviced Suites in the next three years. One will be launched in Bangkok next year and the others in fast-growing countries such as China, Vietnam and Malaysia. - CNA/so

Source : Channel NewsAsia - 5 Mar 2008

SERVICED apartment operator Frasers Hospitality is expanding its footprint in North Asia with a maiden project in Japan.

The group said in a press statement yesterday that it was adding Fraser Place howff Shinjuku, Tokyo to its portfolio as part of its plan to tap the lucrative Japanese premium serviced residences market.

The new property, which belongs to re-plus inc, is one of the largest serviced apartment projects in the country. The building’s East Tower with 175 units is scheduled to open next month . A further 200 units in the West Tower will be ready by the second half of this year.

Frasers Hospitality said its latest project is located near the busy Shinjuku Station, in the heart of Tokyo’s largest sub-centre and a key commercial, banking and entertainment district.

Fraser Place howff Shinjuku, Tokyo, is designed by Nikken Sekkei Ltd and CKR (Claesson Koivisto Rune Arkitkontor). It comprises one, two and three-bedroom apartments as well as triplex units.

Choe Peng Sum, Frasers Hospitality’s chief executive officer, said the group’s latest project was a milestone in its North Asian expansion plan as Japan was a key gateway city with foreign investments.

He said the group hoped to meet the demands of both local and foreign corporations for mid- to long-term stay facilities which combined the comforts of home with selected five-star hotel facilities.

Frasers Hospitality is the hospitality arm of Frasers Centrepoint, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the listed Fraser and Neave group.

Source : Business Times - 26 Feb 2008

Property developer CapitaLand has gained control of 96.7 per cent of the Ascott Group.

With this level of acceptance, CapitaLand can now compulsorily acquire the remaining shares of Ascott that it does not own.

The move will allow CapitaLand to delist Ascott and take it private.

But Ascott shareholders, who have yet to accept the offer, can still do so before the closing date of 11 March 2008.

CapitaLand had offered to buy all remaining shares of Ascott that it does not own at S$1.73 each.

Ascott shares have been suspended after its free float fell below 10 per cent last Thursday. - CNA/vm

Shares of Ascott Group are likely to be suspended, now that CapitaLand has gained control of 91.7 percent of the company.

Under listing rules, the Singapore Exchange may suspend a stock when its free float falls below 10 percent.

In a statement, CapitaLand says it will not appeal for the trading suspension to be lifted. The company has said that it intends to take the Ascott Group private.

However, it needs to acquire 97 percent of Ascott in order to exercise its right to compulsorily acquire the remaining shares of the company.

CapitaLand has offered to buy all remaining shares of Ascott that it does not own at S$1.73 each. The offer will close at 5.30pm on 26 February. - CNA/ir

Source : Channel NewsAsia - 21 Feb 2008