Hilton Seoul likely to be converted into office building

Millennium Hilton Seoul will likely be redeveloped as an office building after Seoul-based IGIS Asset Management Co. acquires the property from Singapore-listed City Developments Limited (CDL) for around 1 trillion won.

The two groups are in the final stages of the sale.

The five-star hotel was the venue of South Korea's 1997 negotiations to secure a $58 billion rescue package from the International Monetary Fund.

Singapore's sovereign wealth fund GIC is among other global institutional investors that are looking to participate as limited partners in the upcoming transaction that is likely to be completed this month.

Several five-star hotels in downtown Seoul have been sold for redevelopment as residential or office buildings due to the pandemic-caused travel restrictions.

The 22-floor hotel has 700 guest rooms and a gross floor area of 82,856 square meters. It sits on land measuring 18,760 square meters.

Since its opening in 1983, it had been co-managed by the now-defunct Daewoo Group and Hilton International, a US hotel chain, until Daewoo sold the property to CDL for $213.5 million in 1999.