Japan’s Serenity Lake Leisure to buy control of Hunas Falls for Rs.700mn

Further to its previous announcement, Hunas Falls Hotels PLC on Friday said its two major shareholders have entered into a share sale and purchase agreement with Serenity Lake Leisure (Pvt.) Limited, a company believed to have been floated by a Japanese investor/s for this purpose.

A stock market filing said Serenity Leisure Lake would buy the shares held by Carbotels (Pvt.) Ltd and Amaya Leisure PLC in their entirety, at a price of Rs.187 per share, which will place the value of the deal almost at Rs.700 million. 

Carbotels, an entity linked to Hayleys, has little over 2.8 million shares or 50.22 percent of Hunas Falls Hotels while Amaya Leisure has 899,000 shares or 15.98 percent.

Both Hayleys and Amaya are controlled by billionaire businessman Dhammika Perera.  

Mirror Business learns that TAD Lanka, a company founded in 2016 by Toshiaki Tanaka, Atheeq Ansar and Dhanuka Samarasinghe, facilitated the deal.
TAD Lanka official websites says the company was set up to help Japanese investors to find investment opportunities in Sri Lanka.Since the transaction triggers the Takeovers and Mergers Code of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Serenity Lake Leisure will announce a mandatory offer shortly to purchase the remaining shares of Hunas Falls Hotels. The book value of Hunas Falls Hotels, as at September 30, 2018, was Rs.60.39, down from 63.67 a year ago. The company made a net loss of Rs.12.9 million for the FY17/18, against Rs.3.2 million net profit reported for the previous year. 

The company owns and operates Hunas Falls Hotel, which has 28 Deluxe rooms, one Cardamom Suite and two Theme Suites, in Elkaduwa, targeted at the upmarket leisure traveller.

According to the company’s latest annual report, the total carrying amount of property, plant and equipment stood at Rs.355.9 million. Its freehold land—19 acres, 3 rood, 21 perches—was valued at Rs.63.6 million.