NEW YORK, March 22: The Pakistan International Airlines Investments Limited (PIAIL) on Thursday closed the deal for the purchase of the only five-star deluxe Hotel Scribe in Paris (France) for $18.5 million. The deal was confirmed by the President of Minhal France S-A, a subsidiary of PIAIL, Pervez Sajjad, in a telephone conversation with Dawn.

The Hotel Scribe is estimated to be worth $200 million and that combined with PIAIL’s purchase of Roosevelt Hotel in New York two years ago which is estimated to be worth $400 million, puts the total assets of the PIAIL at over half a billion dollars.

Aslam R. Khan, Managing Director of PIAIL, told Dawn that the funding to purchase the hotel to which PIAIL held the lease to the year 2030, was done independently from foreign resources.

Crediting the Chairman of PIA and PIAIL, Lt-Gen Hamid Nawaz Khan, who pushed for the acquisition of the hotel, Mr Khan said that the 217-room Hotel Scribe was estimated to bring in a revenue of $150 million a year with net profit of $7 million which will pay off the loan the PIAIL acquired to buy the hotel.

The $30 million loan acquired by the PIAIL secured the outright ownership of hotel and the additional $12.5 million were set aside for improvement and renovation of the hotel.

Hotel Scribe is located in the most prestigious business and shopping district of Paris (near Paris Opera House) and was taken on a long lease by the PIAIL in 1979 without any purchase option. Considering the potential Hotel Scribe offered both in terms of real estate value and its positive financial impact, specially during the last eight years, the PIAIL decided to acquire freehold of the hotel.

The Hotel President, Sajjad, said in a statement: “One is proud to report that the PIAIL now owns a landmark property worth one billion French franc. Not only that the PIAIL management succeeded in purchasing this property on most favourable terms, but it also organized the loan financing of 138 million French franc against its own resources.”