Skye Suites Sydney and Our Skittle Place in central Sydney (Image: Stonebridge)
Singaporean hospitality group Furama has purchased a central Sydney hotel complex, with market sources on Thursday confirming a transaction price of A$68 million ($44.7 million).
Skye Suites Sydney opened in 2018 and comprises a 73-key serviced apartment offering within the 25-storey Arc by Crown building near Darling Harbour. The buy also includes Our Skittle Place, a six-store retail precinct on the ground floor of the building.
The property was sold out of receivership in an exercise managed by Stonebridge Property Group and HTL Property, with a short-listed second round deciding the winning bidder after the first round drew more than 300 enquiries and over 20 formal offers.
“Sydney stands out as one of the most attractive hotel investment markets in the Asia Pacific, alongside Tokyo as the two most popular destinations for international capital,” Andrew Jackson, HTL’s national director of accommodation, said Wednesday in a release.
Former Crown Asset
Australia’s Financial Review first reported the deal value and the identity of the buyer as Furama, the hotel chain once owned by the Fu family behind Hong Kong’s KHI Holdings and now controlled by Singaporean businessman William Ng.
The hotel was sold by receivers after Iwan Sunito’s Crown Group folded (Image: Crown Group)
Before entering receivership the asset had been owned by Crown Group, the once-highflying developer co-founded by Indonesia-born entrepreneurs Iwan Sunito and Paul Sathio.
The hotel, which will continue to trade under the Skye Suites brand, attracted a “who’s who” of bidders drawn to the property’s oversized suites, high-spec finishes and recent construction, said Stonebridge national director Lincoln Blackledge, who dubbed it Sydney’s biggest hotel deal of 2025.
“The excellent trading performance as well as the ability to purchase the hotel with or without the existing business broadened the appeal of the offering and led to the intense bidding,” Blackledge said.
Hospitality Heats Up
With more than 40 hotels and 7,500 rooms under management in key Asia Pacific cities, Furama joined the list of Singaporean investors bagging hospitality assets in the region this year.
In March, Ong Beng Seng’s Hotel Properties Ltd announced a deal to buy the 139-key InterContinental Auckland for NZ$180 million ($102.2 million), marking the group’s first acquisition in New Zealand.
In April, SC Capital Partners disclosed its acquisition of the 165-room Hotel Gran Cerezo Kagoshima in southern Kyushu island on behalf of the firm’s $1 billion Japan hospitality fund. Later that month, sovereign giant GIC agreed to pay INR 7.52 billion ($88.2 million) for a 35 percent stake in an India hotel investment platform managed by Gurugram-based Samhi.
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