Posted by meb at June 24th, 2008

Amplio Real Estate Investment and Development Company, which was established with the objective of building 20 Hilton Garden Inn Hotels and Hampton Inn hotels with a total investment of $300 million, has decided to expand its business.

Amplio Company, which was satisfied with the potential in Turkey, increased its building objective to 40 hotels and its investment target to $1 billion.

Alaeddin Babaoğlu, who established the company with German partner E. W. Graebner, said the company’s primary objective when it first entered into business was to construct 20 hotels within five years. “The current prediction is that we will achieve this target within two years. As a result, we raised our objectives to building 40 hotels over five years,” said Babaoğlu. He announced that the company has bought nine building sites already and this number will increase to 13 by the end of this year. The building sites are located in the cities of Manisa, Diyarbakır, Eskişehir, Çorum, Çorlu and Samsun.

Babaoğlu also said the company completed the purchase of the first building site in Istanbul, and added that the company paid YTL 10 million for the building site of the hotel which will be constructed near Miniatürk in Sütlüce. The construction of the hotel will start in 2009 and it will be finished by the World Water Congress, which will be held in Turkey in 2010.

Babaoğlu said the company will construct a historical hotel in Sütlüce that is appropriate for the aesthetics of the region and emphasized that the 220-room hotel will have an authentic silhouette. Babaoğlu said the company has had difficulty in terms of finding building sites in Istanbul and added that the company aims to build five to six hotels in the city if it finds appropriate places. “The fact that Istanbul was chosen as the European Capital of Culture for 2010 increased its potential. In fact, the city lags behind with respect to the number of hotels compared to that of the big cities of the world,” said Babaoğlu. “We continue our search for finding appropriate building sites. We are also searching for places near airports,” he added.

Babaoğlu announced the company’s first two hotels will be built in Diyarbakır and Bursa in August and September respectively. He said the hotel in Diyarbakır will be constructed near Turkmall and that the company paid YTL 3 million for the building site. Babaoğlu underscored that the first place the company bought with the appropriate price is situated in Diyarbakır, and said this is the main reason why the company performed its first ground-breaking ceremony there. He said the company paid an amount ranging from $2 to $3 million for the building sites.

Meanwhile, Babaoğlu said that Amplio differs from the major groups in the sector in the sense that the company buys building sites with its own resources, and added that seven private equity firms appealed to the company to take up its shares. “These funds have not yet entered the Turkish market. They are either American or England based. In the first round, we will continue with our own resources, but in the second round we may choose one of these funds. Our negotiations continue,” said Babaoğlu.
source: Turkish Daily News