Outrigger to buy Phuket’s Laguna Beach Resort

PHUKET: Outrigger Hotels and Resorts announced today in a press release that it has entered into an agreement to acquire the 254-room Laguna Beach Resort, located on Bang Tao Bay on the northwest coast of Phuket.

The transaction is scheduled to close in the first quarter of 2013.

The press release did not stipulate how much the resort was being sold for.

“The Laguna Beach Resort will be one of the brightest jewels in the Outrigger portfolio and we look forward to completing the renovations and opening this resort early next year,” said Darren Edmonstone, managing director of Outrigger Enterprises Group – Asia-Pacific.

Originally opened in 1991, the Laguna Beach Resort will be the second Outrigger property at the Laguna Phuket resort complex, joining the Outrigger Laguna Phuket Resort and Villas, which it has managed since August 2009.

“After managing a property in the Laguna Phuket destination resort for nearly three years, we are confident that the Laguna Beach Resort is a perfect fit for our first major investment in the Asia-Pacific region. We look forward to continuing to expand the Outrigger brand to other major resort destinations as well,” added Mr Edmonstone.

Laguna Resorts and Hotels PCL, a public company listed on the Thai stock exchange, developed the Laguna Phuket integrated resort in the mid-1980s from the remains of an abandoned tin mine once thought to be too polluted to develop.

Laguna Phuket has since won numerous environmental awards as a result of that successful effort.