The government has failed in its bid to sell its shares in the collapsed Hilton Hotel and the Intercontinental Hotel – popularly known as the InterCon Hotel. This has been revealed by documents that were tabled n parliament.
According to the documents, the Privatization Authority was unable to find buyers who could match the prices the government had set as the reserve price for Hilton and InterCon Hotels.
This is despite the authority placing the shares of both Hilton and InterCon hotels for sale in March and April 2024, which is close to one year ago. Apparently, the bids that were made came in at below the market value.
“The transactions were taken to the market through an advertisement for Expression of Interest (EOI) which was evaluated successfully and Request for Proposal (RfP) documents issued to the qualifying bidders. However, sales were not sealed as the bids received were below the reserve price,” Chris Kiptoo, the National treasury Principal Secretary stated in the documents.
PS Kiptoo did not, however, disclose what the reserve price for the two buildings is. Currently, the government holds a 40.58 percent stake in Hilton Hotel and a 33.83 percent stake in InterCon Hotel. The Hilton Hotel operated under the holding company International Hotel Kenya Limited while InterCon operated under Kenya Hotel Properties Limited.
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The InterCon Hotel shut down its operations in Kenya in August 2020. At the time of closure, the hotel was associated with the late president Daniel Moi’s family.
The family had initially owned a 19.3 per cent stake before upping its shareholding to 53 percent in 2018. The family had acquired the stake through Sovereign Group which bought 5,874,391 shares.
Shareholders of InterCon had previously included the Intercontinental Hotels Corporation Group (33.8 per cent), the Development Bank of Kenya 12.99 percent stake, government of Kenya 33.83 percent stake.
The InterContinental Hotels Corporation had been running and managing the 389-room hotel under a 99-year lease since April 1967. On its part, the Hilton Hotel shut down in December 2022 after 53 years of operation.
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