Warburg-Backed Hospitality Investor Buys Pair of Historic Cambodian Hotels

Lodgis Hospitality Holdings, a Singapore-based hotel investor and developer backed by Warburg Pincus and VinaCapital has completed the acquisition of a pair of heritage hotels in Cambodia, according to an announcement by the two-year-old firm.

The Indochina-focused hotel firm purchased Raffles Hotel Le Royal Phnom Penh and the Raffles Grand Hotel d’Angkor Siem Reap, both of which date from the 1930s, adding to what the company says is the largest collection of the historic luxury hotels in Indochina.

Buying a Piece of Southeast Asia’s Past

“We are very excited with the acquisition of the two historic Raffles hotels in Cambodia,” Peter T. Meyer, chief executive officer of Lodgis commented via a statement. “Together with the Metropole in Hanoi, Lodgis now owns an irreplaceable Indochina heritage hotel portfolio that allows us to achieve significant synergies on both marketing and operations to better serve the rapidly developing tourism market across Indochina.”

The company did not provide financial details of the acquisition. Both hotels are managed under the Raffles hotel brand, which is now a unit of French hospitality giant Accor, and had been restored by the then Singaporean hotel firm in the late 1990s.

Lodgis now says that it will renovate both the 175-room Raffles Le Royal, which is located near the US Embassy and the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh, and the 119-room Raffles Grand d’Angkor which occupies a 15 acre site near the ancient ruins of Angkor Wat in Siem Reap.

Lodgis Expands into Cambodia

The Cambodian acquisitions are now the first hotels from outside of Vietnam to join the Lodgis portfolio after the tourism startup acquired the 365-key Sofitel Legend Metropole hotel in Hanoi during February of 2017. The company has also acquired six operating hotels in locations including Phu Quoc island, Cam Ranh Bay and Da Nang, and has another three Vietnam properties under development.

Warburg Pincus joined with VinaCapital and its founder Don Lam in November 2016 to set up the $300 million hospitality joint venture, which included buying 100 percent of Lam’s Serenity Holding hotel firm.

Warburg Pincus Gets Deeper into Indochina

The US private equity giant has become increasingly involved in Indochina’s markets, and now has investments in multiple real estate sectors in Vietnam.

In February, Warburg Pincus teamed up with Vietnamese state-owned builder Becamex IDC Corp in a $200 million joint venture that established BW Industrial Development Joint Stock Company as the largest logistics and industrial real estate developer in the country.

That industrial JV came after Hanoi-based Vingroup raised more than US$740 million in an initial equity offering on the Vietnamese stock exchange earning a return of over three times Warburg Pincus’ initial 2013 investment in the company.