Lankaila (Pvt) Ltd has invested over Rs. 2.2 billion in the last two months to acquire hotels for refurbishment, make partnerships and also engage in securing management contracts.
Chairman Lanka Lankaila (Pvt) Ltd, Dhakshitha Bogollagama told ‘Daily News Business’ that since commencing this initiative two month ago their biggest investment was for Peacock Beach Hotel where they invested Rs. 1 billion to take the major controlling stake of the hotel. “In addition, we further invested Rs. 100 million to refurbished the hotel and reopen it again.”
Elshad Mansimov, Lakmal Perera and Dhakshitha Bogollagama after signing the agreement |
He said it in addition they have taken overs mainly boutique hotels in Dickwella, (16 suites) Oga Reach Tissamaharama, (12 rooms) Arugam Bay, (10 keys) Kalamatiya (8) Anuradhapura (12 rooms) and in several other areas having a total of over 300 rooms. He said that one of the most common scenarios of these hotels were the fact that they were either in heavy debt or poorly managed and were either closed or on the verge of closure as a result of the downturn of the tourism industry.
“The first thing we did was to talk to their banks and completely settle their dues and secondly we gave them seed capital to restart the hotels. In some instances, we even provided additional money for refurbishment and to re-open their hotels.”
He also said that one of the unique features in this initiative was that he along with the consortium of investors mainly from Singapore did not look for any collateral unlike other lending institutions.
“We took a calculated risk mainly to help the Sri Lankan tourism sector which we see promises of bouncing back sooner than expected. We are also happy to note that our timely initiative has also helped to regain about 300 job opportunities that were lost to the local hospitality industry due to the non-functionality of these hotels.”
Bogollagama also said that they are now looking at acquiring a 50 room plus property in Colombo next month to extend their footprint in Colombo city limits.
Launching another business model, Lankaila (Pvt) Ltd moved to the management of hotels and with their partner, Zeta Singapore management company which has 500 plus marketing team spread in many parts of Asia signed up with Ocean Queen Hotel in Wadduwa.
“We also infused around Rs 50 million for some urgent upgrades at Ocean Queen.”
Ocean Queen hotel is a newly built 4-star property with 50 plus rooms and has one of the longest swimming pools in the area said its Azerbaijan investor, Elshad Mansimov. “We have invested around Rs. 1.2 billion to build this property.”
“With the new management we will aggressively promote our conference and MICE facilities to the corporate sector,” said General Manager of Ocean Queen, Lakmal Perera.