SilverNeedle on aggressive drive to have 100 hotels in five years

By Michael Lim

/ The Edge Property |

July 18, 2016 8:00 AM SGT

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Singapore-based SilverNeedle Hospitality Group has been expanding its presence in the Australian hospitality market. Its latest hotel in Australia is the Sage Hotel West Perth, which opened in April. Sage Hotel West Perth is a A$35 million ($35.9 million) development undertaken by SilverNeedle in partnership with Perth-based private property development and investment group Australian Development Capital.

Sage Hotel West Perth is a A$35 million development undertaken by SilverNeedle in partnership with Australian Development Capital

It marks SilverNeedle’s third Sage-branded hotel in Australia. The other two hotels are Sage Hotel Adelaide and Sage Hotel Wollongong. There are three more Sage hotels in the pipeline — Sage Hotel Fortitude Valley Brisbane, Sage Windsor Brisbane and Sage Resort Darwin — which will open between 2017 and 2018 and have a combined total of 485 rooms in a portfolio worth A$145 million.

A new management contract was signed three months ago for the opening of SilverNeedle’s NEXT-branded hotel in Melbourne by 2018, its second hotel under that brand in Australia. The first was NEXT Hotel Brisbane.

Kiridara Luang Prabang in Laos is part of the SilverNeedle Collection of boutique hotels

SilverNeedle currently has a total of 49 hotels with 3,760 rooms in its Asia-Pacific portfolio. Forty-four of the hotels are located in Australia and New Zealand, with the remainder in Asia: three in Thailand and one each in Laos and Sri Lanka.

The project in Sri Lanka is in the capital. The Colombo City Centre is said to be a 47-storey, one million sq ft mixed-use development comprising a shopping mall, apartments and a hotel to be branded NEXT Hotel Colombo. The development is scheduled for completion in 2018 and is a collaboration between Abans Group, a reputable Sri Lankan conglomerate, and SilverNeedle Hospitality Group, a wholly-owned unit of Nadathur Far East.

Nadathur Far East is based in Singapore and is a unit of Nadathur Holdings, the family office and investment vehicle of the family of Nadathur S Raghavan, a co-founder of Nasdaq-listed Infosys Technologies. Nadathur retired from Infosys in 1999 and has since sold his shares in the company. Nadathur is reported to have pumped almost US$1 billion ($1.3 billion) into Nadathur Holdings.

Nadathur’s eldest son, Sriram, 44, heads Nadathur Far East, while second son Anand, 42, is CEO of SilverNeedle.

SilverNeedle was formed in 2009 following the acquisition of Ativa Hospitality, a Bangkok-based hotel management company that operated a chain of boutique hotels in Thailand and Cambodia. In 2011, Silver Needle acquired Constellation Hotels, an Australian hospitality company that operated four hotel brands including Country Comfort Hotels, Australis Resorts and Hotels, Chifley Hotels and Sundowner Motels, with a portfolio of more than 50 hotels and 4,000 rooms.

While these brands continue to operate, SilverNeedle has also created its own line of hotel brands, says Anand. They are the SilverNeedle Collection, a premier boutique hotel brand; NEXT, a business hotel; Sage, which appeals to the family and leisure market; and Linq, which is targeted at the IT-savvy Generation Z.

Riva Surya Bangkok is located along the Chao Phraya River

In the SilverNeedle Collection are boutique hotels in unique locations such as the Kiridara Hotel in Luang Prabang, a Unesco World Heritage site in Laos; the historic 137 Pillars House in Chiang Mai, built in the 19th century and the former headquarters of East Borneo Company; and Riva Surya Bangkok along the Chao Phraya River, a redevelopment of an apartment block. Another hotel recently added to the SilverNeedle Collection is the Riva Arun, located opposite Wat Arun near the Grand Palace and overlooking the Chao Phraya River. There are plans for another SilverNeedle Collection hotel in Ubud, Bali, which is still at the concept stage, says Anand.

He has plans to grow the hospitality business aggressively, doubling the portfolio of hotels from 49 to 100 for a total of more than 10,000 hotel rooms across Asia-Pacific over the next five years. “This year, we are targeting to sign between four and eight new hotel deals in Australia, Thailand, India and Sri Lanka,” says Anand. “We are targeting to reach 100 hotels in the shortest time possible.”

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