New hotel expands Chow brothers empire
The Chow brothers’ property company, Stonewood Group, has just opened its fifth hotel, but the group has plans to expand its empire much further.
Following the launch of Microtel by Wyndham Wellington Central, Stonewood Group executive director Michael Chow said the business wanted to have hotels in every major New Zealand city.
‘‘Tourism is a key contributor to the economy, and with the phased border opening, tourism is back on track. It is a lucrative sector for investors, and we plan to grow this aspect of our development by another 15% over the next three years.’’
The company was building up its commercial building arm, and was just starting its next project at 280 Queen St in Auckland’s CBD, he said. It involved refurbishing, and adding another five levels, to the mixed-use office and retail building.
‘‘Preliminary planning is also under way for two more commercial buildings in Wellington, but our next hotel property development will be in Christchurch by the famous international golf course.’’
Chow and his brother, John, originally tried to get into hotel development in the late 1990s when they purchased their first commercial property, the old ANZ building at 73 Courtenay Place in Wellington. That project did not work out, but they eventually opened their first hotel development, the Just Hotel Wellington, in 2004, he said.
‘‘It was an old AA office building, and we converted it into a 60-room four-star hotel. It was a steep learning curve for us, but we managed to achieve 70% occupancy in the first year.’’
Since then, their company had completed four more hotels which were in Auckland, Wellington and Rotorua, but Chow said they had faced challenges along the way. Their fourth hotel, the Pullman Hotel Rotorua, opened in March 2020.
Property was now the brothers’ key focus, but they had interests in the adult entertainment industry and commercial property for 20 years before moving into residential property in 2016.
That expansion came when they bought the assets of Stonewood Homes, one of the country’s largest group home builders, after it went into receivership.
In November 2020, the brothers launched Stonewood Capital to provide an alternative to bank funding for the group’s developments by franchisees and licensees.
Earlier this year, the company formed a partnership with former prime minister Sir John Key and his son Max’s property development company, MTK Capital.
The joint venture, Stonewood Key Capital, was focused on raising capital from wholesale investors, with a goal of reaching $100 million within 18 months.