Pakistan is weighing the options for the future of its iconic Roosevelt hotel in New York, including the demolition of the centennial structure to build a skyscraper, as part of the broadest commitments of privatization and government reform with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), said the Outlet Bloomberg on Saturday.
Muhammad Ali, advisor to the Privatization Prime Minister, confirmed to Bloomberg that multiple possibilities were being considered. “The government is interested in a joint company where Pakistan will contribute to the land and the partner will bring equity,” he said in Islamabad. “The other option is to retain the hotel if it makes economic sense.”
Ali added that the situation would become clearer in the coming months, once a joint business partner is finished and the “market sound” is completed.
According to its IMF loan agreement of $ 7 billion, Pakistan is under pressure to restructure or privatize state companies that make losses.
According to Bloomberg, the first important divestment could be Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), which for a long time has depended on government rescues that are no longer sustainable.
“The advisor has the hope that the national carrier will be sold in November,” the report said.
Ali told the publication that several of the country’s largest business groups were interested in acquiring Pia and that they had the ability to change it. He estimated that approximately half a billion dollars would be required in investment to relive the operations of the airline.
The government is also in the process of hiring advisors for the transaction of the Roosevelt hotel, a property that some have described as “the new Ellis Island” for its historical role in housing migrants.
Bloomberg said the offers had been received from seven companies, including Citigroup Inc., Cbre Group Inc. and Savills PLC, and that a new advisor would end at the end of this month.
