IFA Hotel Investments president Joe Sita stands in front of the pool and beach at the North Residences of the Fairmont Palm Jumeirah project.
About IFA Hotel Investments
IFA Hotel Investments (IFA HI) is a subsidiary of international resort and residential developer IFA Hotels & Resorts (IFA HR), responsible for the asset management of IFA HR’s hotels and for overseeing its 85% investment in the Yotel brand.
The asset management is IFA HI’s core business, which revolves around liaising with various operating companies including its strategic partners Fairmont, Mövenpick, Four Seasons and Starwood.
Another joint venture partner is Kingdom Hotel Investments, with which IFA HR is currently invested in the Four Seasons Beirut.
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IFA HI is also involved with securing the capital structures for IHA HR properties and effectively acts as the client representative from a development perspective, to help ensure that each of the products is fit for purpose.
The Yotel business operates differently as IFA HR has a private equity investment in the brand.
Yotel has a full management team headed up by CEO Gerard Greene based in London but IFA HI, on behalf of IFA HR, is intimately involved in the operations, with Joe Sita sitting on the Yotel board.
The company also owns the Yotel New York building. “We have a pretty big vested interest in the success of the business,” comments Sita.
IFA HR is listed on the Kuwait Stock Exchange, with a market capitalisation of US $1 billion and also on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.
The main shareholder in the company is the Kuwait-based International Financial Advisors.
Future Developments for IFA HI
Aside from the Yotel arm of the business, IFA HI remains focused on its core business of asset management in emerging markets.
Sita says he is still focused on the Middle East and South Africa and also very active in Thailand, while central and southern America and Latin America are seen as a great market for the IFA product.
“Eventually we would like to see ourselves take our business model to that market and so forth, so those typically are the markets where we’re comfortable, where we’ve operated, where we have an infrastructure in place, and where we will continue to look for opportunities,” says Sita.
In 2011, the company will open Mövenpick Jumeirah Lakes Towers and in 2012, it will launch the Fairmont Hotel and Residences on The Palm Jumeirah. A second hotel on the Palm at IFA HR’s Kingdom of Sheba development has been put on hold.
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