Sol Meliá today announced the sale of the Meliá Bávaro Hotel in Punta Cana (Dominican Republic) to the Princess Group for 60.5 million dollar - (10,648 million pesetas - 64 million euros)-. The company had previously negotiated the deal with the Best Hotels Group, but the operation was finally aborted when Best Hotels were unable to obtain sufficient financing for the purchase.

According to the Vice Chairman of Sol Meliá, Sebastián Escarrer, “this deal is in line with our asset sales plan for the year 2000, the main objective of which is to take advantage of attractive business opportunities to divest in non-strategic assets or in areas where we have already consolidated our position.

We will devote the resources generated by such deals to increasing the category of the company`s hotel portfolio in areas where we have yet to achieve a presence”. In the case of Punta Cana, he explains, “the sale of the Meliá Bávaro has occurred due to the profitability of the deal and the fact that we are able still to maintain a significant presence along Bávaro Beach”.

With the sales this year of the Meliá Bávaro, three additional hotels in the Canary Islands and the Industrial Laundry in Guadalajara, he adds, “Sol Meliá has generated income of 15,000 million pesetas -90 million euros-”.

He also recalls that, “Sol Meliá ended 1999 after having invested or committed investments of more than 100,000 million pesetas in acquiring 34 hotels, including important purchases in London, Paris and Brussels”.

The incorporation of the Meliá Bávaro, which we now be known as the Hotel Bávaro Princess, is the first international operation to be taken on by the Princess group.

Sol Meliá is the leading hotel company in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the leading resort hotel company in the world. In 1999 Sol Meliá opened a luxury all-inclusive hotel in Punta Cana, the Meliá Caribe, which together with the emblematic Paradisus Punta Cana and the Meliá Tropical provide almost 1,500 rooms.

The company also manages two additional hotels in the Dominican Republic, the Meliá Juan Dolio and the Meliá Santo Domingo, making a total for the island of 5 hotels with more than 2,000 rooms. The Meliá Bávaro was the first hotel that Sol Meliá opened in the Dominican Republic in 1991. Located alongside Bávaro Beach, the hotel provides 750 rooms.

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