Hotel101 a step closer to public listing goal
DoubleDragon, a Philippine-listed property company owned by tycoons Edgar “Injap” Sia II and Tony Tan Caktiong, expects Hotel101 Global to become the very first Filipino company to list via SPAC in the US Nasdaq Stock Exchange. Given its Asset-Light business model, Hotel101 could be one of the major sources of US dollar inflow to the Philippines from 2025 onwards.
DoubleDragon, a Philippine-listed property company owned by tycoons Edgar “Injap” Sia II and Tony Tan Caktiong, envisions Hotel101 Global to become the very first Filipino company to list via SPAC in the US Nasdaq Stock Exchange.
In a filing on Thursday, the DoubleDragon subsidiary officially reserved the Nasdaq stock exchange ticker symbol “HBNB.” The said listing will be followed by the official filing of its prospectus subject to regulatory approvals in the United States.
Given its Asset-Light business model, Hotel101 could be one of the major sources of US Dollar inflow to the Philippines from 2025 onwards.
“If one studies closely the novel and unique Hotel101 concept simultaneously from a deeper detailed view, its Asset-Light and highly portable business model is exportable to over 100 countries globally, of which the network effect of the brand is expected to be further elevated which should positively benefit all the stakeholders within its ecosystem. Moreover, as far as we know, the Hotel101 unique concept has never been done in any part of the world before, moreso in multiple countries worldwide,” DoubleDragon said in a statement.
The Hotel101 concept is a Uniform and Consistent BNB or a Branded Uniform Bite-Size Hotel Investment, the first of its kind in the world. The latest Hotel101 typical room now comes with prefabricated toilets, standardized flat pack furniture and a single type of bulb within the whole building. Room rates are up to 30 percent cheaper versus any other hotel chain in its category in any specific country.
“We believe that companies especially those relatively new players in a highly Competitive industry dominated by a few long established giants and still demonstrate that the team can navigate well even during a prolonged major global economic crisis, such as what we have all experienced in the past three years, will catapult it to be in a unique position to capture the extraordinary opportunities that will present itself in abundance after all the chaos and once the fire has cleared and the smoke has settled,” Sia said.
The worldwide expansion headquarters and the global sales hub of Hotel101 Global Pte. Ltd. is underway. Its headquarters and showroom are located on the fourth floor and ground floor of PLUS Building, 20 Cecil Street at Raffles Place in Singapore’s Central Business District.
The first three overseas Hotel101 projects will be in Niseko Hokkaido, Japan, Madrid, Spain and Los Angeles, California USA. Target near term expansion roadmap for Hotel101 Global Pte. Ltd. is to be in these first 25 countries by 2026: Philippines, Japan, Spain,
USA, United Kingdom, UAE, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Mexico, South Korea, Australia, Canada, Switzerland, Turkey, Italy, Germany, France and China.
“The opportunity that we see globally in the hospitality space is that of standardization because we believe it brings unbeatable efficiency, especially for the mid-end segment. Take for example the budget airline industry — essentially all budget airlines sell one product across the whole industry and that product is the economy seat,” Sia said.
Hotel101 Global Pte. Ltd. is expected to derive over 95 percent of its revenues outside of the Philippines to be consolidated back to the ultimate parent DoubleDragon Corporation. Its vision is to accumulate a portfolio of one million Hotel101 rooms in 101 countries before 2050.
“As history has taught us, major economic recessions have actually served as a launchpad for many inspiring entrepreneurs around the world to leap forward. These temporary periods of dislocation and chaos have created rare windows of opportunity for their businesses to strengthen their market grip and have enabled them to successfully scale up which could have been impossible to break through during good times,” Sia concluded.