Corinthia’s strategy to focus on city-centre hotels may lead to decision on Mistra Village

Kurt Sansone
It was a very technical statement, the one issued by Corinthia Finance plc on Monday. But in simple words the company announcement confirmed well-founded rumours that have been doing the rounds for the past few weeks that the company intends selling Mistra Village.
The company announcement stated that the Group was focussing on acquiring city centre hotels and reducing its exposure to resort properties.
Contacted yesterday by The Malta Financial and Business Times, a company spokesman would not confirm whether Mistra Village was up for sale but said that "nothing has yet been concluded."
Corinthia runs five hotels in Malta; the Corinthia Palace in Attard, Jerma in Marsaskala, the Corinthia Marina and San Gorg in St George’s Bay and Mistra Village in Xemxija.
The Corinthia San Gorg is the only one owned by Corinthia subsidiary IHI (International Hotels and Investments), which also owns city-centre hotels in Lisbon, Budapest and St Petersburg.
The company announcement said that the Corinthia Group, over the last five years had been going through a process of strategic repositioning of investments.
"In line with this strategy, the Group is currently evaluating opportunities that arise for the purpose of realising assets which do not fall within its strategy in substitution for investment assets which are consistent with the continuing strategy," the statement said.
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