The Holiday Inn London – Kensington High Street.
Courtesy of City Developments
City Developments Ltd. (CDL)—controlled by billionaire Kwek Leng Beng and his family—bought Holiday Inn London for £280 million ($370 million), expanding its hospitality footprint in the U.K. capital
Copthorne Hotel Holdings, a wholly-owned unit of CDL completed the acquisition of the 706-room Holiday Inn London in Kensington High Street at £396,600 per room, the Singapore-based developer said in a statement. The hotel sits on a 6,356 square meter freehold property, offering long-term development potential, it said.
With the purchase, City Developments said it owns two of the largest freehold sites in London’s most affluent districts of Kensington and Chelsea. The acquisition also boosts the group’s portfolio to over 3,000 rooms in Central London, where it owns six hospitality assets including the 833-room Copthorne Tara Hotel and the 611-key Millennium Gloucester Hotel.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to secure an ultra-prime freehold site in Central London,” Kwek Leng Beng, executive chairman of CDL, said the statement. “Freehold sites in this location are exceptionally scarce, and it is even rarer to find one directly adjacent to our Copthorne Tara hotel.”
The Holiday Inn hotel is located in a tranquil enclave that’s a two-minute walk to the bustling Kensington High Street, known for its upmarket boutiques, department stores, restaurants and cafes.
The hotel had an occupancy rate of over 97% in the nine months to September 2025. Total revenue in the last 12 months topped £39 million, and the hotel is expected to generate a running yield of over 6%, City Developments said.
The deal comes as City Developments seeks to bolster its finances by selling some of its assets. It has raised S$1.9 billion from divestments this year, strengthening its capital position and optimizing its portfolio as it accelerates redeployment of capital.
With a combined net worth of $14.3 billion, Kwek and his family are among the wealthiest clans in Singapore, according to the list of Singapore’s 50 richest that was published in September. Kwek is also executive chairman of Singapore’s conglomerate Hong Leong Group, which his father founded in 1941.His cousin Quek Leng Chan, also a billionaire, owns and runs a separate group in Malaysia, also called Hong Leong.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/iansayson/2025/12/02/billionaire-kwek-leng-bengs-cdl-expands-in-london-with–370-million-holiday-inn-deal/
