Luxury hotel Mandarin Oriental Taipei (文華東方酒店) yesterday declined to comment on media reports that its owner, Kai Tai Fung International Co (開泰豐國際), has signed an agreement with a Canadian billionaire to sell the property for NT$38.5 billion (US$1.24 billion).
“Questions about the hotel’s ownership structure should be addressed to the owners,” Kai Tai Fung marketing and communications director Luanne Li (李佳燕) said by telephone.
Mandarin Oriental has a long-term management agreement in place in Taipei, Li said, adding that operations are normal.
The low-key and brief responses came after Chinese-language news outlets reported, without citing sources, that Kai Tai Fung chairman Lin Ming-chun (林命群) has agreed to sell the property to 41-year-old Canadian Calvin Lo (盧啟賢).
The deal has been witnessed by lawyers, the reports said.
Lo is the chief executive officer of Hong Kong-based R.E. Lee International, a life insurance brokerage that specializes in estate planning for ultra-wealthy people.
Under the deal, Lo would buy both the hotel building and 4,200 ping (13,884m2) land, the reports said.
Forbes estimated that Lo, who is currently residing in Hong Kong, had a net worth of US$1.7 billion last year.
Lo has been in talks with Lin since last year and sent his team to conduct due diligence in Taipei several times, the reports said.
Lin reportedly did not relinquish all of his stake in the hotel, but would retain some interest.
Kai Tai Fung declined to comment on the reported deal.
Officials at Mandarin Oriental Taipei, which turned five years old in May, said on condition of anonymity that the reports could prove little more than rumors, as local media had published similar stories in the past.
In 2015, Lin was reported to have sold the hotel to a Chinese buyer for NT$48 billion, a report he dismissed as groundless.
The Chinese-language Apple Daily in July ran a similar report, which Lin again denied at the time.
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