Top hotels for sale

Two top hotels in South Africa may be sold before the coming World Cup tournament. German brewer Schörghuber will be selling its Arabella Western Cape Hotel & Spa with 145 rooms in the vicinity of Hermanus, as well as its Westin Grand Arabella Quays hotel in Cape Town which has 483 rooms.

On Tuesday the company which, together with Heineken, is the third-largest German brewer of beer, confirmed its intentions to Sake24.com.

The Blaauklippen wine estate in Stellenbosch, which is also in the group's stable, will not be affected by the transactions and is to be retained.

From a statement issued in Munich it appears that Schörghuber has not lost confidence in South Africa, but that financial problems are forcing it to dispose of the assets.

Last year the company lost €88m.

The sale is part of a restructuring process after chief executive Stefan Schörghuber in November last year died unexpectedly at the age of 47.

But the process is taking place under a veil of secrecy and hotel groups approached for comment said they had signed confidentiality agreements.

But Sake24.com did manage to learn that the transactions would be handled by Deutsche Bank and that the sale price for the Westin Grand is rumoured to be a stiff R1.2bn.

Rael Levitt, chief executive of the Alliance Group, which has recently auctioned off several properties to foreign buyers, says that against the background of limited finance in the commercial property market it will be difficult to dispose of the hotels, but not impossible. He reckons they will be bought by foreign buyers.

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