The struggling supermarket chain Daiei Inc. is in the final stage of talks aimed at reaching an agreement on the sale of almost all of its group's Japanese hotels to the Goldman Sachs Group of the United States, industry sources said Thursday.
Daiei, based in Kobe, hopes to sell seven of the eight hotels the Daiei group operates in Japan for an amount between 60 billion yen and 70 billion yen, the sources said.
The Goldman Sachs Group, a major U.S. investment banking organization, is considering reselling the hotels to other companies, including Bass PLC. Bass is a British firm that operates franchises under the trade names Holiday Inn, Inter-Continental Hotels and others, the sources said.
Daiei hopes to use proceeds from the sale to slash its group debt of more than 2 trillion yen.
Daiei decided earlier to sell some of its shares in the publisher Recruit Co. and Lawson Inc., a convenience store chain.
The hotel sale is seen as the last of Daiei's asset-shedding plans in the near term, according to the sources.
On the list of hotels to be sold are five Oriental hotels -- including one in Kobe and another in Urayasu, Chiba Prefecture, and two business hotels, the sources said.
The list does not include the Sea Hawk Hotel & Resort, near the Fukuoka Dome sports stadium, home of the Daiei Hawks baseball team.
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