Karachi’s iconic Regent Plaza hotel gets Rs14.5bn offer from SIUT

• Hotel comprises 400 rooms with an occupancy rate of 20%.
• Five-star hotel is on a plot measuring 13,200 square yards.
• SIUT wants to convert it into a tertiary-care general hospital.

KARACHI: Hotel Regent Plaza — the city’s iconic building located at Shahrah-e-Faisal — has received an offer of Rs14.5 billion from the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT) Trust, it emerged on Wednesday.

The SIUT is a non-profit healthcare organisation which plans to convert the property owned by Pakistan Hotel Developers Limited (PHDL) into a tertiary-care general hospital, according to documents seen by The News.

Speaking to the publication, SIUT Trustee Syed Shabbar Zaidi confirmed that they had offered to buy the hotel, saying it was a 47,000 square feet built structure, which could be converted into a healthcare facility within a span of one year.

“Karachi badly needs another tertiary-care health facility and constructing a large health facility by acquiring land would take years. In these circumstances, it is the best option to acquire a built structure in the heart of the city and convert it into a health facility,” said Zaidi.

He maintained that it was close to most of the health facilities, including the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD), the National Institute of Child Health (NICH) and the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center (JPMC).

Responding to a query, he said the deal is yet to be accepted by the PHDL but hoped that they would accept the offer in the interests of the people of Pakistan as well as other countries who come to Karachi for treatment of various complicated ailments.

Regarding the availability of funds for the purchase of the property, he vowed to take loans and raise funds from the public to acquire the facility.

In September, the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) was informed that the SIUT Trust intends to conduct due diligence on the five-star hotel in Karachi built on a plot measuring 13,200 square yards.

The PHDL also owns two other pieces of land in Thatta with a total area of about 14 acres.

The hotel comprises 400 rooms with an occupancy rate of 20% for the 2021-22 fiscal year, the latest data available showed. This rate was 9% in the previous year due to COVID-19.

In the first nine months of 2022-23, PHDL reported a net profit of Rs45.5 million, i.e. a 38.3% decrease from the previous year.