DLF Aman sale vaults it to Asia list for top hotel deals

DLF, India's largest real estate company, joined the Asian big league in hotel deals after it sold Aman Resorts at around Rs 1,600 crore (Rs 16 billion) to the latter's founder, Adrian Zecha, recently.

The realtor figures in the top 10 list of sellers for hotel deals in Asia in the last one year.

The data, analysed by American market research firm specialising in commercial real estate sales and trends, Real Capital Analytics, shows DLF sharing space with realty and hospitality majors like Japan Hotel & Resort, LaSalle, Paliburg Holdings, Regal Hotels, Ascott Residence Trust, CapitaLand, Kingdom Holding and some others as sellers in high-value hotel deals.

In fact, DLF comes in again in the Real Capital top list of sellers in the category of Rs development site' at an estimated value of $600 million (around Rs 3,300 crore).

Giving company to DLF in this top list are majors like Hong Kong Land Department, MTR Corporation, Tokyo Tatemono and Islander Investments, among others.

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But reflecting the slowdown in the country's real estate sector, no Indian city has made it to the high table in terms of office, retail, residential apartment or hotel deals.

This is a contrast from last year. In the year ended March 31, 2012, Mumbai and Bangalore figured among the active office markets in Asia.

In apartments, Delhi and Mumbai were part of the top league. Chennai was part of the active deal market in hotels.

This time, the top list of Asian cities active in office space comprises Tokyo, Hong Kong, Seoul, Singapore, Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Taipei, Osaka and Nanjing.

In apartments, the cities making it to the top in terms of high value deals are Tokyo, Singapore, Hong Kong, Beijing, Osaka, Suzhou, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Nagoya and Fukuoka, with China and Japan ruling.

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As international multi-brand retail chains are yet to make any proposal for investment in the country, the retail sector has also drawn a blank in the one-year period for which the research firm has analysed the data.

The Asian cities scoring the big retail deals include Hong Kong, Tokyo, Shanghai, Singapore, Seoul, Taipei and Guangzhou.

The Leela Kovalam deal, pegged at about Rs 500 crore (Rs 5 billion), was part of the Asia list of largest hotel sellers during 2011-12.

The Kovalam beach property was sold to Saudi Arabia-based industrialist Ravi Pillai in August 2011. Most of the others who are in the top 10 list now, including Japan Hotel, LaSalle, and Kingdom Holding, made it last year too.

Real Capital, which tracks and analyses real estate deals worth over $10 million across apartments, hotels, retail, industrial, office and development projects over the world, had also named Noida as a top site for sales in the development site category for a deal with the Wave Group for a mega mixed-use project in the one year period ended March 31, 2012.