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Uganda's National Social Security Fund paid $50 million for a 30% stake in the Kampala Marriott Hotel, the new luxury property built by supermarket tycoon Ponsiano Ngabirano, a price that values the hotel at about $167 million.
The fund invested about 180 billion Ugandan shillings in the hotel and its serviced apartments in Nsambya, on Kampala's Ggaba Road, after more than a year of review by its board, the state-owned New Vision newspaper reported. The deal extends the fund, which manages the retirement savings of Uganda's private-sector workers, into hospitality.
The rest of the hotel sits with Capital Shoppers Ltd., the company through which Ngabirano and his family built one of Uganda's biggest locally owned supermarket chains. At the implied valuation, a 70% holding would be worth about $117 million.
A first Marriott for Uganda
President Yoweri Museveni opened the property on Aug. 27. It has 181 hotel rooms and suites and 96 serviced apartments in two towers joined by a skybridge, along with a ballroom that seats up to 985 people. It is the first Marriott Hotels-branded property in Uganda and operates under a franchise agreement with Marriott International, with Ngabirano's company running the business. The land was made available by Cardinal Emmanuel Wamala, the retired archbishop of Kampala.
Museveni used the opening to back the pension fund's decision. He said he was glad the fund "has woken up and invested in this hotel," arguing that money put into local businesses does more for Uganda's economy than money placed in foreign bonds.
Ngabirano credited the president for the project and described the group's growth from a small grocery in Kampala's Nakasero district into a supermarket chain and now an international-brand hotel. The hotel employed about 400 people at its opening, and Ngabirano said he expected that number to pass 1,000 by the end of the year.
From grocery to hotelier
Ngabirano, who was born in Rukungiri district in western Uganda, founded Capital Shoppers with his family in 1997. The chain grew into one of the largest Ugandan-owned supermarket groups, with branches across Kampala, and the family has built up large land holdings in and around the capital. New Vision estimated his net worth at about $50 million in 2012, well before work on the hotel began.
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