Ascott Fast-Tracks Growth with Oakwood Acquisition

(04 July 2022, 10:57 +07)  Ascott has confirmed that it is in the process of acquiring Oakwood Worldwide, a serviced apartment provider, from Mapletree Investments.

The acquisition, details of which have not been released, will increase Ascott’s global portfolio by 81 properties and about 15,000 units.

Oakwood’s approximately 8,500 operational units are expected to immediately contribute to Ascott’s recurring fee income streams upon completion of the transaction slated in 3Q 2022.

Ascott’s acquisition of Oakwood will leapfrog Ascott’s global presence to more than 150,000 units in about 900 properties across over 200 cities in 39 countries.

Oakwood Premier Tokyo

It will add new markets which include Cheongju in South Korea; Zhangjiakou and Qingdao in China; Dhaka in Bangladesh; as well as Washington D.C. in the United States of America.

“We intend to build on the strong reputation and heritage of the Oakwood brand, especially in markets across Southeast Asia, North Asia and North America. Oakwood will continue to grow alongside Ascott’s current portfolio of global brands as we continue to build growth momentum for our lodging business,” said Kevin Goh, CapitaLand Investment’s Chief Executive Officer for Lodging. “Besides strategic alignment, this acquisition is also notable to Ascott commercially. Ascott’s acquisition of Oakwood brings about an immediate boost to our units under management and franchise contracts. The Oakwood portfolio will accelerate the growth of our asset-light business, with added recurring fee income streams, expanded lodging offerings and increased customer base. The strategic moves we have made in the last few years, such as our investments in Quest, Synergy and TAUZIA have charted an unprecedented growth path for Ascott.”

Ascott’s strategic investments in the past years include its acquisition of Quest Apartment Hotels (Quest), one of the largest serviced apartment operators in Australasia, in 2017 to grow its business franchise arm.

In the same year, Ascott invested in Synergy Global Housing (Synergy), a corporate housing provider in the USA.

In 2018, Ascott acquired Tauzia Hotel Management, an Indonesia-based hotel operators, to enter the fast-growing mid-scale business hotel segment.

With Oakwood coming onboard, Ascott is confident of achieving its target  of 160,000 units globally well ahead of 2023.

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