Former Manila racetrack to host 250-room Mercure hotel

LISTED MJC Investments Corp. has signed a hotel operation deal with a global hotel group, the company told the local bourse yesterday.

“The memorandum of understanding was executed [on Tuesday evening] between MJC Investments and the Accor Group, through its affiliate, AAPC Singapore Pte. Ltd., for hotel consultancy and hotel management services in relation to a 250-room, four-star hotel,” the company said in a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange.

The hotel will be built on a 1.4-hectare property at the Philippine Economic Zone Authority-registered San Lazaro Tourism and Business Park in Sta. Cruz, Manila. The site is part of the former racetrack, the San Lazaro Hippodrome.

“The MJC Investments hotel design, layout, facilities and standards will be built in accordance with the Mercure brand,” the listed firm said.

The Accor Group, one of the top hotel managers in the world, operates and manages 4,163 hotels with 498,617 rooms in 90 countries.

Hotel brands of the Accor Group, which posted €2.85 billion in revenues in the first half, include Sofitel, Mercure, Novotel, Pullman, Ibis, Adagio and Etap.

Mercure, along with Novotel and Adagio, belongs to the mid-scale brand portfolio of the Accor Group.

“The final terms of the hotel management agreement will be negotiated within three months from the execution of the memorandum,” MJC Investments said.

Late in March, MJC Investments signed an agreement for state-run Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. to open a casino in the soon-to-rise hotel.

In the nine months that ended in September, the company incurred a P458,171 net loss, reversing its P1.78-million profit in the previous year as costs and expenses rose and interest income dropped.

MJC Investments has about 52,000 square meters of land in Tanza town in Cavite, which will be jointly developed with Sta. Lucia Realty and Development, Inc. as a residential, commercial and golf course complex.

The company has remained idle and did not spend for project development in the last three fiscal years.

Shares in MJC Investments, a mining outfit that became an investment holding company in 1997, closed P0.04 lower at P1.56 each yesterday. -- Neil Jerome C. Morales