BIZ BUZZ: HBNB cruising to $2-B valuation

At the close of trading last week, Hotel101 Global Holdings Corp. or HBNB, the Nasdaq-listed subsidiary of DoubleDragon Corp., was valued at $7.07 a share for a market capitalization of $1.66 billion or around P97 billion, more than double the valuation of just $700 million when it listed last July 1.

But observers believe that the market value would exceed $2 billion in the not so distant future, considering that the 680-room Hotel101 in Madrid, Spain, is getting ready to start accepting hotel bookings as early as February 2026.

To follow is the 482-room Hotel101 in Niseko, Japan that will start accepting bookings in December 2026, just in time for the winter season in Hokkaido.

The 1,162 operating Hotel101 rooms will thus start generating overseas recurring revenues to DoubleDragon, the growing property company founded by tycoons Tony Tan Caktiong of Jollibee fame and Edgar “Injap” Sia II, founder of Mang Inasal.

More importantly, these should prove the viability of its asset-light business model, where projects are executed through joint venture and licensing agreements with local developers in these countries.

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Over the next three years, the plan is for Hotel101 to be present in the United States, Cambodia, Saudi Arabia and Italy, which are among the 25 countries that the two tycoons want in their network.

The long-term vision is to build out a total of a million uniform Hotel101 rooms that should become major dollar generators for the Philippine economy and a source of pride and honor for Filipinos who can count on another brand that is making the Philippines’ presence felt abroad.