Indonesian company sells big hotel

Indonesian company sells big hotel

HONG KONG (Dow Jones): An Indonesian company has sold an upscale hotel in Melbourne to Sydney-based Southern Pacific Hotel Corp. group, a hotelier owned by Chicago's prominent Pritzker family.

The 384-room, four-star Melbourne Centra Hotel fetched about A$70 million, according to Anthony Karp, regional director of JLW TransAct Pte Ltd. in Singapore, which brokered the deal on behalf of its Indonesian client Perfect Match Ltd.

Perfect Match is a joint venture between Indonesia's Budiman family and businessman Sulistyo Winarko, whose interests include PT Surabaya Agung Industri Pulp & Kertas (P.SAI), an Indonesian pulp and paper manufacturer.

Karp declined to reveal details or the exact amount of the transaction. Perfect Match and Southern Pacific Hotel couldn't be reached for comment.

Perfect Match bought the Melbourne hotel originally in 1991 for A$52.5 million, Karp told Dow Jones Newswires. Southern Pacific Hotel has been managing the hotel operation ever since.

Analysts in Indonesia said many debt-ridden Indonesian companies are beginning to cash in their offshore assets to take advantage of the rupiah's sharp depreciation versus the U.S. dollar in the past year, and to bolster their financial position at home.

Karp declined to speculate whether his clients were distressed sellers. He added, however, that Perfect Match may still be looking for buyers for a hotel and office complex in Auckland, New Zealand.

Many Asian investors are divesting from properties accumulated during the boom years in such countries as Australia, the U.K. and U.S. which have "harder currencies than what they've got at home," said Eric Levy of Horwath Hotel Partners, a regional hotel consultancy. "It's a good time to harvest capital from overseas and bring it home."