Billionaire Wee Cho Yaw’s UOL Expands Global Hotel Footprint, Betting On Post-Pandemic Recovery

UOL Group—controlled by billionaire Wee Cho Yaw—is gearing up for a post-pandemic recovery in the hotel industry with its Pan Pacific Hotels Group investing as much as S$400 million ($294 million) to expand its global footprint.

Pan Pacific is adding more than 4,000 rooms from 18 new and refurbished hotels in the next few years to its existing portfolio of almost 12,500 rooms across 39 owned and managed properties in Asia, Oceania, Europe and North America. The group has been using the lull period during the pandemic to expand its global footprint, with the opening the Pan Pacific London last September and the reopening of the Parkroyal Collection Marina Bay in Singapore in December 2020 following nine months of refurbishment.

While the hotel industry is among the hardest hit by the Covid-19 pandemic in the past two years as governments worldwide imposed travel restrictions to curb the spread of the virus, Pan Pacific CEO Choe Peng Sum said he is confident pent-up demand will drive the recovery going forward.

“Travel will come back,” Choe said at a media briefing late Monday after UOL announced the group’s full-year 2021 results. “By the second half of 2022, we do foresee international travelers will come through. We will be well placed to receive these bookings.”

Singapore has been gradually opening up its borders with the introduction of vaccinated travel lanes with more than 20 countries including Australia, Canada, the U.K. and the U.S. The Asian financial hub will again host the Formula One Grand Prix in October at the Marina Bay night circuit after a two-year hiatus.

To prepare for the return of international travelers, Pan Pacific is currently building Pan Pacific Orchard, a 347-room hotel that will feature an iconic biophilic design when it opens in March next year. The company will also start constructing another hotel in 2023 on the site of Faber House in Singapore’s popular shopping strip. The project will add another 250 rooms to the group’s portfolio when completed in 2026.

Across Southeast Asia, Pan Pacific plans to reopen the 535-room Parkroyal Collection Kuala Lumpur at the heart of the upscale Bukit Bintang shopping district in the first half of this year after undergoing major renovation works since June 2020. Also this year, the company is opening serviced apartments across Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, with a total of over 500 rooms.

Pan Pacific is also set to open the 158-room Pan Pacific Jakarta and the 180-key Parkroyal serviced apartments—which are part of the Thamrin Nine mixed-use development that includes the 75-story Autograph Tower, Indonesia’s tallest skyscraper—in the second half of 2023.

Despite the lingering impact of the pandemic, UOL said in a statement that its hotel revenues have increased by 14% to S$282 million in 2021 compared to the previous year, bolstered by contributions from the reopening of Parkroyal Collection Marina Bay and the launch of Pan Pacific London.

The improved hotel revenues, along with robust sales of UOL’s residential projects, boosted the group’s net profit to S$307.4 million in 2021, compared with S$13.1 million the previous year.

UOL said sales of its residential projects increased 67% to S$1.6 billion, accounting for about 60% of the group’s total revenues. To tap the resilient housing demand, the company is planning to launch this year a new project with 372 residential units in Ang Mo Kio in northern Singapore. Another project with over 200 units in the Bukit Timah area in the western part of the city-state will be launched next year.

“The latest set of property cooling measures announced last December has had a dampening effect on the residential market,” UOL Group CEO Liam Wee Sin said in a statement. “However, we do not expect a sharp price correction.”

One of Singapore’s biggest property developers, UOL is controlled by veteran banker Wee Cho Yaw, 93, chairman emeritus of United Overseas Bank, the nation’s third-largest bank by assets. The bank was founded by his father Wee Khiang Cheng in 1935 as United Chinese Bank. With a net worth of $6.8 billion, Wee ranked No. 9 on the list of Singapore’s 50 Richest that was published in August.