SINGAPORE-BASED Ascendas Hospitality Trust (A-HTRUST) has purchased the Namba Washington Hotel Plaza in Osaka for 8.9 billion yen (US$87 million).
The flagship property of domestic hotel chain Washington Hotel is A-HTRUST’s second acquisition in Japan since the company’s IPO in July 2012.
Namba Washington Hotel Plaza offers 698 rooms and two F&B outlets. The property’s location in Osaka city is a gateway to other tourist destinations in the Kansai region such as Kobe, Kyoto and Nara.
Atsushi Murai, senior vice president, investment sales Asia, JLL Hotels & Hospitality Group, which brokered the deal, said: “We have seen hotel trading performance in Japan improve in line with the expansion of the domestic economy and renewed growth in corporate and leisure travel.
Investors are showing a greater willingness to take on more risk as the global economy regains confidence which has underpinned the compression of yields.
We are seeing significant interest from private investors, owner-operators, listed companies and institutional investors from both domestic and regional markets and we expect this trend to continue throughout 2014 as further opportunities come to market.”
