10/29/2018 Churchill's Moroccan Oasis on Sale in Privatization Push - Bloomberg

Deals

Churchill's Moroccan Oasis on Sale in

Privatization Push
By Souhail Karam
October 29, 2018, 10:00 AM GMT+8

Government plans to offer 51% stake in famed Marrakesh hotel

La Mamounia was the setting for Hitchcock, Oliver Stone films

La Mamounia Hotel in Marrakech. Photographer: Fizcairn/Getty Images

Morocco is counting on Alfred Hitchcock and Winston Churchill to help it raise money.

The government plans next year to sell a 51-percent stake in La Mamounia Hotel, a former
Marrakesh palace-turned-five-star hotel that has, for decades, welcomed leaders such as
Charles de Gaulle, as well as the Hollywood elite, according to two people familiar with the
plan. They declined to be identified because the sale has yet to be formally approved by the
cash-strapped kingdom’s cabinet.

The government is expected to fix a minimum price and invite bids sometime in 2019, one of
the sources said. The majority stake is currently held by the state railways monopoly, while

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10/29/2018 Churchill's Moroccan Oasis on Sale in Privatization Push - Bloomberg

minority shareholders include the state-controlled investment management fund, Caisse de

Depot et de Gestion (CDG), and Marrakesh’s city council.

La Mamounia, which was listed in February 2018 as one of the “7 Most Historically Significant
Hotels in the World” by interior design magazine Architectural Digest, has a storied past. The
Art Deco palace was a favorite of Churchill’s, who, the magazine said, once described it to
Franklin Roosevelt as “one of the most beautiful places in the world.”

As well as welcoming scores of A-list celebrities such as Marlene Dietrich, Ray Charles, Paul
McCartney and Elton John, the 95-year-old palace that was a wedding gift to Prince Al
Mamoun from his father, served as a backdrop for films including Hitchcock’s “The Man Who
Knew Too Much” and Oliver Stone’s “Alexander.”

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Khadija Borara, a spokeswoman for the railway company, known by its French acronym
ONCF, declined to comment. Najat Saher, an official with the finance and economy ministry’s
privatization department, did not return calls seeking comment.

The hotel, once the flagship of Morocco’s luxury hospitality industry, has seen its star dim
slightly in recent years -- a victim of the push to market scenic Marrakesh, with its growing
links to European airports, as a year-round destination to a broader range of tourists.

King Mohammed’s Marrakech Hotel Offers Champagne Shoe Polish

"If the walls could talk, they would surely have some stories to tell," La Mamounia’s brochure
reads.

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