Mega Conglomerate to build Pakistan’s first six-star international hotel on site of near-abandoned Hotel Metropole spread over 4 acres

KARACHI: In an exclusive interview with Profit, ‘mystery billionaire’ Habibullah Khan announced that he would be building Pakistan’s first six-star international hotel in Karachi.

Khan said, “We’re going to make a district with four different components. One will be a globally recognized six-star hotel [in Karachi].”

He added that there would also be branded apartments sharing the hotel’s facilities. “We want to build a city within the city and we have been working extensively to achieve this,” he told Profit.

Khan has used his own funds to buy Hotel Metropole, a near-abandoned hotel complex spread over 4 acres right in the middle of the financial district of Karachi.

Talking about how he purchased the heritage site, he told that past owners of Hotel Metropole were Zoroastrian, more commonly known as Parsis. They had been trying to sell their property for a decade. There were many interested parties, but few had the kind of liquidity and appetite to consummate the transaction fast. Khan said, “By the grace of God, within two months we closed the deal.”

Moreover, his company Mega Conglomerate has been considering to award the design contract to renowned British-Iraqi architecture firm Zaha Hadid Architects or Louis Vidal of Spain, both of whom have already given their proposal for the complex. A third UK architecture firm is in the running as well.

Khan is known as the largest player in dairy after Nestle and Engro Foods. He has been actively working to acquire a financial institution besides being a huge player in the energy sector, having recently acquired a major stake in Hub Power (Hubco).

As power prices surge in the country, Hubco Board Chairman Khan also plans to provide electricity slightly above one-third of the current price, within a span of two years. He stated that he plans to bring the electricity cost down in the country by adding renewable energy components to Hubco’s portfolio to create the right energy mix.