1.37 million units of its shareholdings worth Rs 112.82 million to Dominion Investment Ltd of the UK on Thursday. AFIL sold the shares, which has a face value of Rs 100 per unit, at Rs 82 per unit.
“AFIL is the first investor to sell off all its shares. However, this will make no difference in the operation of the hotel as the new investor has bought the shares,” a highly placed source at Hyatt Regency Kathmandu told Republica.[break]
Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Korean Development Bank are already among the hotel’s foreign investors. ADB had invested US$ 1.25 million in shares and US$ 1.38 million as loan in the hotel.
A total of 14 domestic banks and financial institutions including Standard Chartered Bank, Rastriya Banijya Bank, Nepal Bank Ltd, Nepal Investment Bank, Agriculture Development Bank, Himalayan Bank, Nepal Industrial Development Corporation are among the major domestic promoters of the hotel.
“Foreign and domestic banks have converted 30 to 40 percent of their loan investments into shares. So, we are relieved as we have don’t have huge loans now,” said the source.
Hyatt Regency Kathmandu, which has a paid-up capital of Rs 1.67 billion, had been sustaining losses until the end of fiscal year 2008/09 when its total accumulated loss had crossed Rs 850 million.
However, the hotel earned an operating profit of Rs 70 million during the fiscal year 2009/10.
Meanwhile, despite the Hyatt deal pushing the sub-index of the Hotels group up by 10.17 points at the Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse), the Nepse Index dropped 3.18 points to close at 408.88 on Thursday, largely owing to a 6.08 point drop in the sub-index of the Banking group.
Related story
Hyatt Kathmandu bags leadership award
