TOKYO - Singapore's sovereign wealth fund has bought the Westin Tokyo hotel from Morgan Stanley and US-based Starwood Capital, the firms said Tuesday, in a deal reportedly worth about US$715 million.
The 438-room hotel in Tokyo's Ebisu district will continue to be operated by Starwood Hotels and Resorts under the Westin brand, a joint statement said. The companies gave no financial terms for the purchase by GIC Real Estate, the property investment arm of the Government of Singapore Investment Corp.
The Nikkei business daily reported earlier this month that the Singapore fund would pay about 77 billion yen for the property, which the sellers purchased in 2004 from Japanese brewer Sapporo Holdings Ltd for about 50 billion yen.
GIC is one of two investment vehicles of the Singapore government and manages the country's foreign reserves of more than US$100 billion through various investments.
Its property arm has been expanding its portfolio in the world's major cities including Tokyo, Munich, Sydney and Seoul. GIC announced in January that it would invest US$6.88 billion in US banking giant Citigroup.
That followed its December investment of almost US$10 billion into Swiss bank UBS.
Morgan Stanley has been an active player in Japan's real estate sector in recent years.
It bought 13 Japanese hotels owned by All Nippon Airways Co. in 2007 for 281.3 billion yen.
It is also currently buying US financial services giant Citigroup's headquarters in Japan in a deal reportedly worth 48 billion yen. -AFP/vm
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