Luxury real estate in Colombo powers a dramatic profit surge for Shangri-La Asia, with investment properties outperforming hotels and signaling a major shift in Sri Lanka’s high-end property market.
Shangri-La Asia’s real estate operations in Colombo, spanning premium seafront residences, office space, and high-end commercial assets, delivered a standout financial performance in 2025, with profits more than doubling compared to the previous year.
The group’s investment property portfolio, anchored by flagship developments such as One Galle Face Mall and One Galle Face Tower, generated a full-year profit of 14.2 million US dollars, equivalent to approximately 4.4 billion rupees, for the year ending 31 December 2025. This marks a sharp rise from 5.2 million US dollars recorded in 2024, reflecting a growth of over 173 percent. Revenue also climbed to 28.4 million US dollars, around 8.9 billion rupees, up from 24.5 million US dollars in the previous year, according to the company’s official disclosure in Hong Kong.
What initially began as a landmark hotel project on land formerly occupied by the Sri Lanka Army has now transformed into a high value real estate portfolio, delivering stronger returns than the hospitality segment that originally defined the development.
Meanwhile, Shangri-La Asia’s hotel operations in Sri Lanka recorded a profit of 8 million US dollars, approximately 2.5 billion rupees, on revenue of 41 million US dollars in 2025. This represents a modest improvement from 2024, when revenue stood at 40.5 million US dollars. The turnaround is notable given that the hotel segment reported a loss of 2 million US dollars in 2024 and a loss of 1.9 million US dollars in 2023.
The company highlighted that its commercial and office space footprint in Sri Lanka exceeds similar assets in Malaysia and Singapore in terms of gross floor area. It also noted that occupancy levels in Colombo’s commercial real estate market continue to rise steadily, while rental rates have remained stable, supporting consistent returns.
Luxury residential property sales also played a major role in boosting performance. The Residences at One Galle Face offer high-end apartments ranging from over 1,700 square feet to 3,400 square feet. A penthouse unit in the development was previously listed for more than 1.5 billion rupees, underlining the premium positioning of the project.
The strong contribution from Sri Lanka helped drive a 28 percent increase in the group’s global hotel business income, which rose to 90 million US dollars in 2025 from 70 million US dollars in the previous year.
During the year, Shangri-La Colombo appointed Andreas Streiber, a long serving executive within the group, as its new General Manager, reinforcing leadership continuity at the flagship property.
Across the broader group, Shangri-La Asia reported a slight dip in investment property profit to 196.9 million US dollars from 199.9 million US dollars. However, this decline was offset by robust performances in Sri Lanka and Mongolia. Overall revenue from the segment increased to 139.4 million US dollars from 125.8 million US dollars in 2024.
Sri Lanka’s luxury apartment sales significantly strengthened the real estate division, with profit rising to 15.1 million US dollars compared to just 400,000 US dollars in the previous year. The company did not disclose the number of residential units sold during 2025.
The total value of Shangri-La Asia’s investment property assets in Sri Lanka now stands at 206.8 million US dollars, exceeding the valuation of its hotel assets in the country and reinforcing the strategic importance of its Colombo real estate portfolio.
Hotel occupancy in Sri Lanka showed gradual improvement, increasing to 46 percent from 39 percent in 2024. However, the average room rate declined to 143 US dollars from 162 US dollars. Despite this, revenue per available room edged up slightly to 65 US dollars, reflecting marginal gains in operational efficiency.
The group’s real estate revenue surged by more than 304 percent to 9.3 million US dollars in 2025, compared to 2.3 million US dollars in 2024. This growth was largely driven by property sales in Colombo as well as in Dalian, China, highlighting the global footprint of Shangri-La Asia’s property investments.
In contrast, hotel operations in mainland China recorded widening losses of 14.3 million US dollars, while properties in Japan and Thailand also posted losses during the year. On a more positive note, Hong Kong operations delivered a strong performance, with profit rising to 32 million US dollars, supported by its flagship hotels Island Shangri-La and Kowloon Shangri-La.
Overall, Shangri-La Asia, incorporated in Bermuda, reported a decline of more than 30 percent in attributable profit, falling to 112.3 million US dollars in 2025. Consolidated revenue showed a slight increase to 2.2 billion US dollars, with room revenue contributing 1.1 billion US dollars and food and beverage revenue reaching 766.7 million US dollars.
