The Royal Orchid Sheraton Hotel, which fell into financial difficulties, preventing it from honoring an old contract, was supposed to be auctioned off, but a Bangkok court has now delayed the auction after a petition from the current operator.
Trust manager One Asset Management Limited is challenging the decision, which is also contingent on Royal Orchid Hotel (Thailand) Public Company Limited (ROH), to deposit 4.873 billion baht within seven days.
There are three entities involved in this rather complicated situation: for one, there is the Royal Orchid Hotel (Thailand) Public Company Limited (ROH); then, the Trust Manager (One Asset Management Limited); and the property is Royal Orchid Sheraton Hotel & Towers Bangkok.
ROH sold the hotel to a real estate investment trust in a sale-and-leaseback deal in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic when they urgently needed cash like so many hotels.
The deal mandated that the ROH buy back the hotel and repay the real estate investment trust a specific amount after five years, and they have failed to do so,
The hotel was sold for 4.5B THB, and the ROH was supposed to pay 4.873B THB in July 2026 to regain ownership of the property.
The real estate investment trust has now told ROH to hand over the property within 30 days so they can auction it off, and that process was already underway – until now, when a court intervened by granting an injunction.
According to The Nation, the court has now given Royal Orchid Hotel (Thailand) Public Company Limited an additional seven days to pay back the money and avoid the auction block.
An interim court order has suspended the sale of Royal Orchid Sheraton Hotel & Towers assets, with trust manager One Asset Management Limited indicating that capital repayments and returns to unitholders will be delayed. The South Bangkok Civil Court issued the order on November 9, 2026.
Royal Orchid Hotel (Thailand) Public Company Limited (ROH), which applied for the injunction on November 9, must deposit 4.873 billion baht as security within seven days. The court order will lapse if ROH fails to provide the security within that period.
Alongkorn Prathanrasnikorn, chief property and trust officer at One Asset Management, outlined the development in a filing to the Stock Exchange of Thailand. One Asset Management manages the Grande Royal Orchid Hospitality Real Estate Investment Trust with Buy-Back Condition (GROREIT).
One Asset Management will instruct Dherakupt Law Office Co., Ltd. to petition for the revocation of the interim order as soon as possible. The company aims to allow the hotel asset sale to proceed in accordance with the resolution of GROREIT Unitholders’ Meeting No. 1/2026.
One Asset Management said the injunction temporarily suspends the running of the 14-day period for completing the asset sale to Orchid Hospitality Company Limited following unitholder approval.
One Asset objecting to this suggests either that it hopes for a more beneficial outcome through an auction or that it doesn’t trust the legal process to play out in good faith.
After all, the court order was contingent on Royal Orchid Hotel (Thailand) PCL depositing the full amount within seven days. If they can’t manage that, then it will default back to the auction.
John covered this first in August when the issue first arose and since then nothing much has happened in terms of payment:
Bangkok River Drama: Royal Orchid Sheraton Hits The Auction Block!
This is just another example of a hospitality business deal gone awry in Thailand, even though the entities involved have all been staples in the Thai hospitality scene. At least One Asset is a very big name, and they hold several popular properties. The dodgy player here seems to be ROH.
Conclusion
The drama surrounding the Royal Orchid Sheraton Hotel in Bangkok is going into yet another chapter after the Trust (One Asset, a big Thai investor) had not received payment for the hotel which it bailed out in a deal with the then owners during the pandemic.
Now the courts are involved in facilitating the proper winding down of this deal, either by finally paying up the contractually agreed sums or by auctioning off the property by the end of the year.
It really is a mess with this property. The hotel itself is supposedly profitable, which is often the case with these old hotels, although that profitability usually stems from a lack of large-scale investment in renovations and upkeep.
While the Royal Orchid Sheraton isn’t terrible, it’s far from a modern hotel and urgently needs some TLC. If you’re looking for a retro hotel, you’ll feel right at home here.