This story is part of Forbes’ coverage of Philippines’ Richest 2025. See the full list here.
The June SPAC listing of Hotel101 Global Holdings made history as the first Filipino-owned company to debut on the Nasdaq market. The Singapore-based hospitality arm of Philippine property developer DoubleDragon, set up by chairman and CEO Edgar Sia II together with his longtime business partner, fast food billionaire Tony Tan Caktiong (DoubleDragon’s cochairman), operates what it calls “condotels.”
These are condos with standardized rooms—a compact 21-square-meter unit, including a kitchenette—which are presold while the properties are under construction and operated as hotels after completion. The investor is entitled to a 30% share of gross room revenue every month plus free stays.
Hotel101 currently has 1,100 rooms in two such condo hotels in the Philippines, with three more under construction. Projects are underway in Japan and Spain with a site secured in Los Angeles. In May, Hotel101 announced a joint venture with Saudi investment firm Horizon Group to build 10,000 rooms across Saudi Arabia.
Though its market cap of $850 million is well below its pre-listing valuation of $2.3 billion, the Nasdaq IPO takes Sia closer to his goal of making Hotel101 a globe-girdling brand—with 1 million hotel rooms in 100 countries by 2050.