CP Group, the country’s biggest hotel group and owned by the wealthy Pandey family, is an active developer and owners of hotels.
The company’s success in the redevelopment of hotel properties, is widely recognised by major international hotel groups, who manage many of CP Group’s properties.
Since its incorporation in 1993, the company has grown rapidly and amassed a considerable property portfolio across New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Finland, the US where it seven hotels and has another four under refurbishment and Fiji where it has four hotels.
There has been a focus on the acquisition and redevelopment of properties, both hotel and commercial, which have diminished in performance and/or require significant works to reposition and enhance their value and economic performance.
CP Group recently bought the former Station Hotel on Beach Rd in Auckland for refurbishment, adding it to a hotel portfolio, which has the biggest market share in New Zealand at 8%.
Another property under refurbishment is the former Reserve Bank building on Customs St in Auckland’s CBD into an Accor-branded Sofitel So hotel. After several years of delays amid rows with a Korean constructions company, which was sacked from the site, the new hotel is due to open in the middle of this year.
In total the group has more than 1400 hotel rooms in New Zealand.
The CP name stands for the initials of Charles Pandey, the family’s patriarch, who lives between Auckland, Australia and Singapore.
The Pandey family intends being long-term owners and to increase the value of its assets through a creative, yet disciplined design/renovation approach, and aggressive asset management to achieve above average performance.
In Australia, the group has a hotel portfolio of more than 2500 rooms, valued at more than $700 million, in addition to numerous other commercial and residential property interests of similar scale.
In addition, subsidiary companies within the group are extensively engaged in the residential market, both as developers and investors, and in Singapore have been involved for more than 50 years.
In New Zealand, particularly at the luxury end, a large portion of the residential properties are held by group entities as rental investments.
Within the group it also has car park buildings and modern and heritage commercial properties, such as the 1910 Strand Arcade on Queen Street and 8 Eden Crescent in Auckland.
Charles Pandey and his family prefer to maintain a low profile and operate through more than 50 companies registered in various names.