In a move that may assure the best use of the idle asset situated in the most valuable location, the government agreed on Monday to employ a firm to lease the Roosevelt Hotel in New York.
According to the finance ministry, the Cabinet Committee on Privatization (CCOP) reiterated its prior judgement regarding the Roosevelt Hotel.
The CCOP’s proceedings also underlined once more how ineffectively the nation could manage even a privatization transaction for less than Rs. 2 billion.
The CCOP, which is led by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, has once more forwarded the sale of the Services International Hotel, Lahore, to the Law Ministry.
“Regarding privatization of PIA Investment Ltd (PIA-IL)-owned asset – Roosevelt Hotel, New York, the CCOP decided to uphold its earlier decision dated July 2, 2022, where the meeting directed the Privatization Commission to initiate the process of appointment of a financial adviser (FA) to undertake the envisaged leasing of Roosevelt site for meeting up a joint venture project for prospective mixed-use development, through the best-suited mode of privatization,” said the Ministry of Finance.
The committee also voted to remove the floundering SME Bank from the privatization initiative, which gave the Privatization Commission (PC) and SME Bank a solid foundation on which to be wound up.
Typically, hiring a financial advisor takes four months or so. After that, it takes a long time for them to create a roadmap.
The Roosevelt Hotel in New York could be designated a heritage structure by the local government.
The US ambassador in Islamabad has been contacted by the Pakistani Foreign Office to ask him to request the authorities in New York, not to designate the building as a historic site.
Over the course of the hotel’s closure, Pakistan has spent more than $150 million to cover a variety of expenses.
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