MHG to develop 50 new hotels in Africa

AMBITIOUS plans for 50 more
hotels in Africa within the next
five years have been tabled by
the Minor Hotel Group.
The multibillion-rand plan will
treble its current footprint, with
high-end hotels planned for
cities that include Cape Town,
Johannesburg, Lagos, Abuja
and Ndola.
“At the moment we have 25
hotels in Africa and we want
to grow by 50, adding 10 a
year for the next five years,”
said Sir Richard Hawkins,
the Minor Hotel Group’s
regional operations director
for Africa, operating out of its
Johannesburg offices.
The plan is to negotiate
management deals with hotels
of about 150 bedrooms, with
the possibility of taking equity
in them later. No fixed budget
has been allocated, but with
each management deal likely
to cost about R225m, it’s a
potential investment of more
than R11bn in the next five
years in Africa alone. “It’s not
an open pocket of money but
where there are opportunities
we will go in,” Richard said.
The group is keen to
establish a presence in SA
through business hotels in
Johannesburg, business and
leisure hotels in Cape Town,
and leisure hotels in the
Western Cape. That will build
on the R679m deal Minor
Hotel Group struck with Sun
International (SI) in 2014,
when it opened an office in
Johannesburg after buying a
stake in eight SI properties.