BIZCHINA / News
China Post not to stay in hotels
By Ding Qingfen (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-03-23 09:03
Moving aggressively to disengage from its hospitality business, China
Post Group is trying to concentrate more on its core business.
The group yesterday started listing 30 of its star hotels from its stable
of 400-odd ones on Shanghai United Assets & Equity Exchange (SUAEE) for
asset trading, responding to the call by Premier Wen Jiabao.
At the recent annual session of the National Committee of the CPPCC, the
premier said State-owned companies should overhaul themselves by
gradually moving away from their non-core businesses.
"We will focus only on postal services in the future, and sell or
transfer first our hotel assets and then the ones in other sectors," Ren
Yongxin, deputy general manager of the Finance Department under China
Post Group, told China Daily.
There are more than 400 hotels under China Post Group, but it selected
the top 30 for the trading experiment, in which Phoenix Asset Management
Co Ltd will act as the mediator.
Most of the group's hotels are rumored to be running at a loss. But Ren
refused to comment on this, saying: "There's no problem with
profitability, the initiative is aimed at sharpening our core competence".
As the 2008 Beijing Olympics - a golden time for the local hospitality
industry - is drawing near, "a professional hotel operator could do a
better job than us in helping these hotels perform better and improve
their brand equity", Ren said.
The 30 hotels listed on the SUAEE are located in 17 cities across China.
They include 4 four-star and 13 three-star hotels.
"We are likely to finalize the deals on the 30 hotels by the end of 2007,
and will then come out with the next batch. By the end of 2008, all the
400-odd hotels will be available for trading on the SUAEE," said Ren.
This is not the first time China Post Group is trying to offload its
non-core businesses. "We have about 1,000 properties in the non-core
sector, ranging from hotels and hospitals to printing facilities," Ren
said.
(For more biz stories, please visit Industry Updates)
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