Macau’s 13 Hotel again up for sale
The 13 Hotel, a throwback to Macau’s freewheeling VIP days, is on the block again. The 22-story, 199-room hotel, known for its ruby-red hotel tower, opened in 2018, closed in 2020 and reopened in 2024 after the Macau Government Tourism Office renewed its licence.
Now owned by a bank, The 13 is listed for sale for a cool HK$2.4 billion (£411.6 million/€354 million/$309 million). Real estate consultancy Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) represents the seller.
“It’s a super-luxury hotel,” JLL Senior Director Mark Wong told the South China Morning Post. “The hotel market is recovering after the Covid-19 pandemic and tourists are coming back quickly.”
Macau expects 35 million visitors in 2025, up by almost 25% over last year.
VIP palace on the Cotai Strip
The property was the brainchild of former Merrill Lynch Asian investment banker Stephen Hung. The flamboyant Hong Kong entrepreneur promised to replicate the Palace of Versailles on Macau’s Cotai Strip and even called his company Louis XIII Holdings Ltd. He later rebranded it as The 13 Holdings Limited.
Outsized appointments included luxury villas with 24-hour butlers, private elevators, a fleet of 30 bespoke Rolls Royce Phantoms in “Stephen red”, and “the very first sauna in Macau built with Himalayan salt bricks”. One VIP suite went for more than HK$1 million a night.
The project broke ground in 2013, the same year Xi Jinping became president of the People’s Republic of China. It was bad timing for The 13, as Xi’s anti-ostentation campaign put a damper on Macau’s VIP sector. In addition, The 13 was denied a gaming licence. That was a big drawback, as its target demographic — big-spending high rollers — preferred to stay where they play.
Will The 13 finally get lucky?
According to Macau Business, the property has multiple bankruptcies in its past.
Former majority investor, South Shore Holdings Limited, went belly-up in 2021 and was delisted from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Its affiliate, The 13 Hotel Management Limited, filed for bankruptcy in 2023. And New Concordia Hotel Limited, which owns the rights to the project site, was liquidated in the same year. It has been since taken over by its creditor, Bank of Communications Macau. The 13 itself was declared officially bankrupt in February 2023.
JLL failed in an effort to sell the property in March 2024, but Wong contends that interest is higher this time around.
“With excellent transport links, including a nearby railway station just three minutes away, the property’s potential for appreciation is further enhanced,” he said. “The opportunity to acquire the entire hotel is exceptionally rare in the market and is expected to be highly sought after by investors.”
One-time hotelier Stephen Hung, for his part, continues to live large. With a net worth estimated at $400 million, he travels around the world in private jets and, per Tatler Asia, is often front and center at events like Paris Fashion Week and the Cannes Film Festival. He and his wife, Mexican supermodel Deborah Valdez Hung, starred in the 2023 edition of the Netflix reality series Bling Empire.
Investors interested in his palatial but ill-timed property must submit their bids by May 19.