Singapore Corporate News - 11 Oct 2007

UOL unit is top bidder for hotel site

UOL Group subsidiary Hotel Plaza plans to develop small office, home office (Soho) units as well as a 350-400 room hotel on a choice plot at Upper Pickering Street, for which it emerged as the top bidder at a tender yesterday, UOL Group chief operating officer Liam Wee Sin said yesterday.

Hotel Plaza's top bid of $253.2 million or $805 per square foot of potential gross floor area was 21 per cent higher than the next highest offer of $209 million ($664 psf per plot ratio) from a unit of Park Hotel Group.

However, hotel industry watchers pointed to the possibility that the group has the option of targeting a higher tier of the market and flagging the new property as a Pan Pacific hotel, since UOL recently bought this brand.

Industry observers said the Upper Pickering Street site is probably one of the choicest plots allowed for hotel development to have been released by Urban Redevelopment Authority in recent years other than the former NCO Club site in Beach Road.

Hotel Plaza owns two other hotels in Singapore - Parkroyal hotels at Beach Road and Kitchener Road - while UOL directly owns 100 per cent of The Negara on Claymore and has an interest of about 30 per cent in Marina Centre Holdings, which has stakes in the Pan Pacific, Oriental and Marina Mandarin hotels here.

China Fishery buys 7th fishmeal plant

CHINA Fishery Group has acquired a seventh fishmeal plant for US$15.3 million.

The plant is in Chimbote, Peru's largest fishing port, where China Fishery has two other plants.

The mainboard-listed industrial fishing company said the purchase will be funded through proceeds from the group's issue of 9.25 per cent senior notes due 2013, which was completed at the end of last year.

China Fishery delivers catch to consumers in markets such as China, Japan and Korea, Europe and the Americas with its onboard processing and freezing technology.

China Fishery said that increasing plant density along the coast is critical to improving operating efficiencies as this allows it to shorten unloading times of raw material.

It will also reduce the turnaround time in its Peruvian anchovy fishing operations and increase its sourcing capabilities from third parties. This will optimise utilisation of the group's fishmeal processing capacities.

China Fishery set up its Peruvian operations in the second half of last year to tap increasing global demand for both fish and fishmeal.

The new plant has a fishmeal processing capacity of 103 tonnes per hour, of which 60 per cent is for steam-dried fishmeal and 40 per cent is for flame-dried fish meal.

Steam-dried fishmeal is considered superior to standard flame-dried fishmeal and hence commands a higher price, the group said.

The acquisition brings China Fishery's total Peruvian fishmeal processing capacity to 549 tonnes per hour.