Playa Hotels & Resorts NV has announced the sale of Jewel Paradise Cove Beach Resort & Spa in Runaway Bay, St Ann, for a consideration of US$28.5 million ($4.41 billion), less than two months after protests were reported at the property.

The hotel owner, operator, and development company made the disclosure on the final day of 2024, noting that the 225-room resort would be sold to a third party. It expects to close the sale of the adult-only property sometime before the end of March. The property officially opened in December 2013 under its current brand and is owned by Paradise Cove Resort Lucia Limited.

This would represent Playa’s third resort sale in Jamaica in five years following the sale of Jewel Dunn’s River Beach Resort & Spa and the Jewel Runaway Bay Beach Resort & Waterpark to Sandals Resorts International for the net amount of US$56.50 million. The Jewel Dunn’s River property was rebranded to the Sandals Dunn’s River and reopened in May 2023.

All three of these Jewel resorts were previously owned by the Sagicor Sigma Real Estate portfolio and were sold in June 2018 to Playa which acquired five Jamaican hotel properties from Sagicor Real Estate X-Fund Limited and the Sagicor Sigma portfolio. That deal pushed Playa’s resort count in Jamaica from its two Hyatt properties in Montego Bay to seven properties in St Ann and St James. However, the sale of the Jewel Paradise Cove property would shrink Playa’s proprietary Jamaican portfolio from 1,428 rooms to 1,203 rooms across four resorts, including the Hilton Rose Hall Resort & Spa and Jewel Grande Montego Bay Resort & Spa.

The sale would also result in the company further writing down the goodwill associated with the US$308.53-million deal with the two Sagicor entities. When Playa acquired the Sagicor properties in 2018, it recognised in US$31.93 million goodwill related to the deal which was later revised to US$35.88 million in 2019. However, Playa recorded US$19.79 million in impairment losses on that goodwill provision during 2020 for its Jamaican properties, with US$4.49 million related to the Jewel Paradise Cove Beach Resort & Spa. Playa’s third quarter report noted that it had a carrying value of US$15.08 million in net carrying value for the goodwill related to the non-Hyatt Jamaican properties.

Goodwill is created when the purchaser pays more than the value of the net assets. This is an intangible asset and represents the value ascribed by the purchaser to the value of the asset they acquired.

Playa’s Jamaican portfolio was hammered during 2024 as it reported a 14 per cent dip in owned resort revenue to US$147.03 million for Jamaica over the nine months as average occupancy dipped from 80.8 per cent to 72.9 per cent due to the impact of the US State Department’s travel advisory and Hurricane Beryl. That travel advisory impacted the broader Jamaican tourism market, with Playa estimating a US$10-million fallout in its earnings on an annualised basis from the advisory. Playa had US$445.24 million in gross property, plant and equipment (PPE) related to its Jamaican properties and had invested US$13 million in capital projects at the resorts. This period also saw the Hilton Rose Hall signing two new finance leases for the use of equipment to produce electricity and hot water and store liquified natural gas. The company’s full year results should be available at the end of February.

Playa’s move to sell the Jewel property in Jamaica comes less than six months after it sold the Jewel Palm Beach in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, for the net amount of US$65.3 million which netted the company a US$18.1-million gain. The company also sold its Jewel Punta Cana property in November 2023 for a net amount of US$79.1 million.

These moves all come a short time after it was recently announced that Hyatt Hotels Corporation had entered strategic discussions with the company, which could potentially include the company being acquired by Hyatt. That agreement will remain in force until February 3.