Gaw Capital Hooking Up with Pony Ma, Neil Shen to Buy Bora Bora Four Seasons

Hong Kong’s Gaw Capital has scored some significant wins teaming up with limited partners like China’s Ping An Insurance and Korea’s KIC on real estate acquisitions, now the family run private equity shop is said to be teaming up with superstars of the mainland tech sector to acquire a Four Seasons resort in French Polynesia.

Gaw, which has a history of hospitality deals including working with KIC to buy Hong Kong’s Intercontinental Hotel for $938 million in 2015, is joining with Tencent founder Pony Ma, Sequoia China boss Neil Shen and a host of other tech industry executives to purchase the $1,200 per night Four Seasons on Bora Bora, a resort island 277 kilometres west of Tahiti, according to a report today in Reuters.

Tencent Execs Buy a Piece of Paradise

The investment consortium, which also was reported to include Martin Lau, the president of the tech giant behind the wildly successful WeChat app and chief strategy officer James Mitchell, is seeking a loan of up to 100 million euros ($105.7 million) to buy the eight year old resort from its original developer, Thierry Barbion.

Deutsche Bank is coordinating the transaction and the loan for the tech-heavy consortium, which also includes Brandon Beck, co-founder of Tencent subsidiary, Riot Games. Not all the investors come from the geek world, however, with Kazakhstani private equity magnate and Meridian Capital managing partner, Askar Alshinbayev, also said to be participating.

No price has been mentioned for the potential sale of the seaside resort, which includes 100 overwater bungalows and seven beachfront villas. The holiday destination was named the top resort in French Polynesia in 2012 and is home to the Ruahatu Lagoon Sanctuary, a research facility and home to over 100 species of marine life, according to the project’s website.

Gaw Continues to Favor Hospitality Deals

During the last year, Gaw has invested in a range of hospitality assets including buying a Chicago hotel for $60 million in July 2016. In December, the private equity firm, which is headed by Goodwin Gaw with younger brother Kenneth Gaw and sister Christina also among the top leadership, invested a reported $26 million in a student housing project in Perth, Australia.

In addition to those 2016 projects, the firm has extensive holdings in hospitality assets, including operating its own Hotels G brand, with hostelries in Bangkok, Beijing, Hong Kong and San Francisco, as well as in several other cities in Asia.

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