AAPC to create investment firm in Indonesia, China

AAPC to create investment firm in Indonesia, China

SYDNEY (AFP): Hotel group Accor Asia Pacific Ltd. is to
create a series of investment companies to fund hotel development
in the region, the company said yesterday.

Accor Asia Pacific (AAPC Ltd.) spokesman Peter Hook said the
establishment of funds in China, Indonesia and India was
"certainly our intention" but plans for the Chinese company were
much closer to completion than the others.

"We are actively working on a China fund and we hope to have
it come to fruition in 1996," he said, adding that the Indonesia
and India funds were long-term projects with no fixed completion
dates.

Hook said the moves, which followed an announcement Tuesday
that AAPC would set up a Singapore-based investment vehicle, were
part of the company's plan to separate the asset-holding areas of
the company from the management operations.

AAPC chairman David Baffsky said AAPC intended to establish
these funds to develop mid-scale hotel properties in countries
where major growth was anticipated and tourism infrastructure was
under-developed.

AAPC announced Tuesday it had formed a Singapore-based
investment company to acquire and develop hotels in Vietnam and
Indochina.

The new company, Indotel Pte. Ltd., would initially hold
assets worth US$76 million.

However, Baffsky said he would not be surprised if the new
vehicle doubled its size "in a reasonable period of time."

Indotel would initially develop four projects -- three new
hotels and a 135-room extension and commercial area for the Hotel
Sofitel Metropole in Hanoi.

AAPC said the Hotel Sofitel, which would more than double in
size as a result of the extension, was the most successful in
Vietnam, turning over almost as much money as the combined effort
of all other hotels in the country.

Baffsky said arrangements for funding the investment vehicle
were already close to being finalized, with the debt financing
approved and the equity funding nearly completed.

AAPC would hold a stake of up to 30 percent and the rest of
the funds would come from institutional investors, he said,
adding that a public float was envisaged "within a couple of
years."

AAPC's push to establish region-specific, hotel property
investment vehicles began late last year when it announced
Tourism Asset Holdings, a trust into which it would transfer its
18 Australian hotel properties, worth about 245 million
Australian dollars (US$182 million).

French-owned Accor SA is the major shareholder in AAPC, which
was listed on the Australian and Hong Kong stock exchanges in
1994.