Hotel operator sells Canning Hwy plot

ASX-listed Transmetro Corporation, the owner and operator of the Metro Hotels group, has sold a surplus landholding adjacent to its Metro Hotel Perth on Canning Highway for $3.18 million.

Comprising about 680 square metres, the lot was subdivided from the land next to the company’s Metro Hotel Perth, Transmetro Corporation’s only Western Australian asset.

The site already has an approved development application for an apartment complex, which will be built on the northern side of the Metro Hotel Perth.

The $3.178 million transaction settled on August 17 to an unrelated party, Celtic Capital Properties (South Perth).

Transmetro Corporation said it would use the bulk of the proceeds to pay down bank debt and that the sale had resulted in an increase in the value of the company’s net assets by $2.228 million, improving the net asset value of the company’s shares of 17 cents per share.

The group has not specified the value of its Perth asset, however, it did disclose last year that the value of its freehold property in Perth was written-down by $8.06 million.  

The sale comes several years after the company invested in a 53-room expansion of the hotel in 2014, appointing Cooper&Oxley to carry out the works, the construction contract valued at about $6.5 million.

Transmetro Corporation currently has seven properties in and around Sydney, including hotels and apartments, a single property in Melbourne, three properties in Queensland and two assets in the Northern Territory, according to its website.

At the close of trade Transmetro Corporation’s shares were unchanged at $1.08 per share.