Melwa Hotels & Resorts (Pvt) Ltd has been announced as the only prequalified company to have put forward a bid for the divestiture of the shares held by the Government of Sri Lanka in Hotel Developers (Lanka) Ltd (HDL), the owning company of the Colombo Hilton.
According to the State-Owned Enterprises Restructuring Unit, the government acting through the Ministry of Finance in October 2023 called for an Expression of Interest (EoI) from interested parties for the divestiture of the shares held by the government in HDL.
Nine responses were received and after evaluation by the Cabinet-appointed Special Project Committee (SPC) and the Special Cabinet-Appointed Negotiating Committee (SpCANC), four bidders were prequalified for the Request for Proposal (RfP) stage.
Issuing a statement, the State-Owned Enterprises Restructuring Unit said RfPs were called for from the prequalified bidders in May 2024. During the buy-side due diligence, two prequalified bidders withdrew from the divestiture process.
The deadline for the submission of proposals ended at 2 pm on Wednesday (July 10) and of the two remaining prequalified bidders, only one, Melwa Hotels & Resorts (Pvt) Ltd, had submitted an offer.
The SPC and SpCANC will now evaluate this offer against the terms and conditions set out in the RfP and in accordance with the Special Guidelines on Divestiture of State-Owned Enterprises as approved by the Cabinet of Ministers.
During the evaluation process, the SpCANC is mandated to further discuss this offer with the proposer. Thereafter, the recommendation of SpCANC will be submitted to the Cabinet of Ministers for its decision.
Colliers International Consultancy & Valuation (Singapore) Pte Ltd is the Transaction Advisor acting alongside Platinum Advisors for this divestiture. (Newswire)
