ASB Hospitality completed the US$30 million acquisition of Makasa Sun, from First Capital Bank and its Staff Pension Fund.

The deal expands ASB’s Zimbabwe hospitality commitment to US$50 million across two landmark assets

The acquisition brings a dormant Victoria Falls hotel back into the market, strengthening room stock quality in Zimbabwe’s most important tourism corridor

Harare- When the Competition and Tariff Commission approved the acquisition of Makasa Sun by ASB Hospitality LLC without conditions in February 2026, the regulatory decision ran to a paragraph. The transaction it cleared is worth several pages. ASB Hospitality, a Dubai-based investment company and subsidiary of Albwardy Investment, has paid USD 30 million to acquire the 294-room Kingdom Hotel in Victoria Falls from First Capital Bank and the First Capital Bank Staff Pension Fund, completing Zimbabwe’s most significant hospitality-sector acquisition in years and extending the Gulf state’s footprint in Zimbabwe’s tourism economy to USD 50 million across two landmark properties.

The Kingdom Hotel has been dormant since early 2023, when African Sun Limited exited the property following the collapse of lease negotiations with First Capital Bank, which held the asset as a result of prior financing arrangements. A 294-room hotel with a location metres from the Victoria Falls rainforest, architecturally inspired by Great Zimbabwe and historically one of the resort city’s flagship properties, sat vacant for more than two years while the bank managed its disposal. ASB’s acquisition ended that vacancy and brought a developer with a demonstrated track record of executing precisely this kind of transformation in Zimbabwe.

ASB Hospitality — Makasa Sun / Kingdom Hotel Deal Summary

Source: Competition and Tariff Commission Q1 2026 Newsletter, First Capital Bank announcements, Equity Axis,  Transaction completed May 2026.

The Kingdom Hotel deal is not ASB Hospitality’s introduction to Zimbabwe. In 2019, the group acquired the Meikles Hotel in Harare for USD 20 million, renovated the property, and reopened it as the Hyatt Regency Harare The Meikles, bringing one of the world’s most recognised international hotel brands to Zimbabwe’s capital for the first time. That transaction was completed at a moment when foreign investors in Zimbabwe’s hospitality sector were still rare. The group’s current portfolio includes properties operated by Four Seasons, Hyatt and Meliá. ASB is a brand-relationship investor that acquires distressed or dormant properties, renovates them to international standards, and operates them under premium global hotel brands that attract the corporate and leisure travellers who generate the revenue that justifies the capital outlay.

With the Kingdom Hotel now acquired for USD 30 million, ASB has committed USD 50 million in acquisition capital to Zimbabwe across two properties. That figure does not include renovation costs, which for the Meikles were substantial and which, for a 294-room hotel that has been closed for over two years, are likely to be significant for the Kingdom Hotel as well. ASB Hospitality plans to renovate and reopen the hotel likely under a new brand and upgraded positioning targeted at luxury and international tourism.

The CTC’s competition analysis was straightforward, the target is currently inactive in the market, the merger does not produce unilateral or coordinated effects, and the transaction is expected to have a pro-competitive effect by reintroducing a competitor into the hotel accommodation market in Victoria Falls. That analysis is correct as far as it goes. A dormant 294-room hotel returning to the market as a luxury international brand is unambiguously good for competition and consumer choice in Victoria Falls.

The more significant analytical question is what ASB’s willingness to pay USD 30 million for a dormant Victoria Falls hotel tells us about the market’s trajectory. The 294-room property was one of Victoria Falls’ largest hotels before the closure of operations at the start of 2023. Its net asset value stood at USD 27.98 million as at October 2024, meaning ASB paid a modest premium above book value, USD 2.02 million above NAV, for a non-operational asset in a market it clearly believes will support premium room rates at international brand level. That is a market confidence signal, not a distressed-asset bargain.

Victoria Falls has been attracting project-specific foreign direct investment from Gulf investors targeting trophy assets in high-traffic tourism corridors. Radisson Hotel Group has already signed a property deal in Harare, while the demand for leisure and MICE facilities in Victoria Falls is being addressed with the development of a Park Inn by Radisson resort. The convergence of Emirati capital at the luxury end of the market and international branded chains at the mid-scale segment is reshaping Victoria Falls’ hotel stock from a collection of legacy properties into a destination with internationally competitive accommodation infrastructure.

For a tourism economy that depends on room stock quality to attract the high-spend international visitor who supports the revenue-per-available-room metrics that justify airline routes and tour operator packages, that reshaping is materially important.

From First Capital Bank’s perspective, the transaction achieved the strategic objective that management had articulated since the Kingdom Hotel fell vacant in 2023, disposal of a non-core hospitality asset at a price at or above book value, with the proceeds redeployed into core banking operations. The bank said the sale is part of a strategic shift to unlock shareholder value by shedding non-core hospitality assets and refocusing on core banking and financial services. For a bank holding a vacant hotel on its balance sheet, that was the correct decision. The competition authority’s role was to ensure the exit did not harm market competition. 

What will determine the full value of the ASB transaction to Zimbabwe’s tourism economy is not the acquisition price but what comes after it, the renovation timeline, the brand selected to replace the Kingdom Hotel name, the room rates that brand supports, the airlift that those room rates attract, and the ancillary spend that a full 294-room international luxury hotel generates in the local economy through food, beverages, excursions, transport, and employment.

Those are the multiplier effects that a competition analysis does not measure but that a tourism economy depends upon. The CTC’s approval was necessary. It is the subsequent execution that will determine whether USD 30 million of Emirati capital becomes a genuine growth catalyst for Victoria Falls, or simply a change of ownership at a famous address.

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