Sono Hospitality to buy stake in Air Premia to bolster airline portfolio

Sono Hospitality Group, South Korea’s largest resort operator, will add low-cost carrier Air Premia Inc. to its bulging portfolio after agreeing to buy a stake in the airline from a domestic private equity firm for 47.2 billion won ($34.6 million).

Sono International Co., a unit of the hospitality group, said on Tuesday it is slated to buy half of a special purpose company (SPC) that owns a 26.95% stake in Air Premia. The SPC is controlled by Seoul-based private equity house JC Partners, the airline’s No. 2 shareholder.

Another Korean private equity firm AP Holdings holds 30.4% of Air Premia as its largest shareholder.

The deal, set to close on Oct. 20, comes with a call option for Sono International to buy JC Partners’ remaining stake in Air Premia through the SPC after June 2025.

“We expect this share purchase to create synergy between Sono’s businesses and aviation service,” said Sono International in a written statement.

The deal came after the hospitality group purchased a 26.77% stake in T'way Air Co. from another Seoul-based private equity firm JKL Partners in two share transactions in July and August. It is now T'way's No. 2 shareholder.

It paid 3,290 won per share of the air carrier, or a 32% premium to its then-market price, for a total of 190 billion won.

Sono International’s stake in T’way is just 3.2 percentage points shy of the 29.97% held by the latter’s top shareholder T'way Holdings Inc.

Sono International said on Tuesday it will not chase additional share purchases in T’way, nor seek to take over its management.

Early this year, Sono Hospitality Group, former Daemyung Sono Group, acquired Hotel Dame Des Arts in Saint Germain-des-Prés, Paris and a 100% stake in Hawaii-based Waikiki Resort Hotel Inc. from Hanjin Kal Corp. in April.

Between 2022 and 2023, Sono International purchased The Normandy Hotel in Washington, D.C. and 33 Hotel, New York City, Seaport. 

Air Premia has a fleet of five Boeing 787-9 mid-sized jets and focuses on US routes such as those to New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. It plans to add four new aircraft to its fleet by the end of September next year.

T'way Air took over Korean Air Lines Co.’s four golden routes to Europe, after the country’s No. 1 full-service carrier relinquished them as a condition of buying local rival Asiana Airlines Inc.

Write to Ji-Yoon Yang and Sun A Lee at yang@hankyung.com
 

Yeonhee Kim edited this article.