Mary Chia subsidiary to sell hotel property for S$64.8m

A subsidiary of Mary Chia Holdings has entered into an agreement to sell a hotel property to JL Asia Resources Pte Ltd for S$64.8 million.

Hotel Culture, a 51-per-cent subsidiary of Mary Chia, is looking to divest its property located on Nos 48, 49 and 50 Mosque Street together with the hotel building there to JL Asia.

The property is a four-storey refurnished shophouse development with 84 hotel rooms. Its book value as at March 31, 2017 was about S$60 million.

The divestment will yield a gain of disposal of S$4.8 million.

Mary Chia said that the proceeds from the disposal will go to repaying term loans and revolving working capital loan to Hong Leong Finance, paying out dividends to shareholders of Hotel Culture and funding working capital for the group.

Any excess cash may be deployed to explore acquisitions, joint ventures and/or strategic acquisitions though the group is not in discussion with any party as yet for these purposes.

The agreement calls on JL Asia to pay Hotel Culture one per cent of the consideration on signing of the deal. The remaining 99 per cent of the consideration will be paid on completion of the transaction.