Ayat Real Estate bought Addis Ababa Ras Hote, one of the oldest hotels in Ethiopia, for 124.4 million birr last Thursday.

Three other companies had bid for the hotel. Sheger Investment offered 121.6 million birr; GCf Plc, in a joint venture with Solomon Admassu, offered 100 million birr; and Nebeyu Ketsela, an individual, offered 100 million birr.

Ayat has already paid 46 million birr, 37 percent of the 124.4 million birr for the hotel, and is scheduled to pay the balance over the coming five years. 

Along with the Addis Ababa Ras Hotel, the Ethiopian Ceramic Products Company and Gojeb Agriculture Development were up for auction but they were not sold. The starting bid for Ethiopian Ceramic Products was 99.1 million birr and for Gojeb Agriculture Development 332.7 million birr.

Abebo Agriculture Development Co in the Gambella Regional State had attracted sole bidder, Toren PIc. The second round offer of 80 million Br to be paid all at once was accepted.

Belito Siraro Agriculture Development, which was up for auction for the first time, attracted two offers from Akir PIc and Guts Agriculture. Guts's offer of 31.1 million birr was below the starting bid of 58.8 million birr. Therefore, Akir won with 82.5 million birr.

So far, the Privatisation and Public Enterprises Supervising Agency has auctioned off 287 state-owned development agencies. The agency has collected 3.9 billion birr from the sale of 24 companies over the last fiscal year.

Source: Fortune