Pegasus hotel’s board negotiating lease deal
The board of directors of Jamaica Pegasus Hotel are negotiating the terms of a lease arrangement that will hand over the operations of the Kingston-based hotel to a company owned by the new majority shareholders.
In its annual report, Pegasus said that the board unanimously resolved to enter into a lease arrangmenet with Surrey Hotel Management Limited (a company owned by the majority shareholder), but in the meantime has “revised (its) rate strategies to compete aggressively with the competition”.
“The possibility of leasing the hotel and assuming the role of a real estate company has also been considered”, which could see the entity consistently return a profit.
The company incurred a net loss for the year to March 31, 2011of $42 million compared to $8.3 million net profit for the previous year.
Previously, the new owners announced plans to close the hotel for a major upgrade in light of the planned entry of the large international chain Marriott Hotel.
“It’s business as usual, and I’m not aware of any developments” Eldon Bremner, general manager of the hotel, told the Business Observer about a month ago.
The Pegasus was recently upgraded while under government majority ownership, however, the new owners, led by hotelier Kevin Hendrickson, deemed it inadequate to being competitive. A new round of upgrades was announced to complement the $503 million dollars already spent to improve the quality of the hotel’s offerings in a bid to increase revenue.
Even then, the company said that “the planned comprehensive refurbishment of the three luxury suites of the hotel was not done this year”, while they were enhanced with soft furnishings and other necessary replacements.
“This will remain until we embark on the full refurbishing programme for the suites,” it added in its annual report.
Quivin Holding paid the Government almost a billion dollars to acquire nearly 60 per cent of the Jamaica Pegasus’s stock units last November and further increase its shareholding in the company to 62.7 per cent after a share buyout offer was made in April.
