Two five-star hotels in Hainan were listed for sale on the same day, and there is no pause button for R&F's asset disposal.

Two more R&F hotels have been put up for auction.

On October 16, 2026, Alibaba Assets and JD Asset Trading Platform released two judicial auction announcements on the same day, with the targets being the Doubletree by Hilton Chengmai R&F Mangrove Bay and the Hyatt Regency Hainan Ocean Paradise Resort Lingshui respectively.

The starting price of the former is about 243.7 million yuan, with an assessed value of 348 million yuan; the starting price of the latter is 630 million yuan, with an assessed value of 901 million yuan. The total starting price of the two auctions is 873 million yuan, both starting at a 30% discount off the assessed value.

As of press time, the number of onlookers for both auctions has exceeded 1,000, but the number of registered bidders is zero.

This is not the first time R&F has faced this kind of silence. Over the past three years, R&F's hotel assets have repeatedly gone through similar cycles on the judicial auction platforms: listed, viewed by crowds, no bids, failed auction, price cut, relisted, and some assets were acquired by investors after the discount reached a proper level.

Cold reception and "bottom-fishing" are both on the table at the same time.

Two Hotels in Hainan

Let's first look at the background of the two hotels up for auction this time.

Among them, the Doubletree by Hilton Chengmai R&F Mangrove Bay has a total floor area of 44,485.83 square meters and opened in October 2015. The hotel has 313 guest rooms, and is equipped with facilities such as a spa center, children's playground, beauty salon, fitness center and yoga room.

It is reported that the Doubletree by Hilton R&F Mangrove Bay is the first international brand five-star resort hotel in Chengmai, and it once served as the "front facade" of the large cultural tourism complex R&F Mangrove Bay.

However, after R&F's debt risk broke out, the hotel was mortgaged to China Everbright Bank Haikou Branch, and Hilton's brand management contract was terminated accordingly. In August 2025, the Doubletree by Hilton R&F Mangrove Bay ceased operations, and was seized by the court in December of the same year, and is currently vacant.

Image source: Alibaba Assets Auction Platform

The Hyatt Regency Hainan Ocean Paradise Resort Lingshui has a different background. The hotel opened in October 2022, with a floor area of 102,000 square meters and 994 guest rooms.

Data shows that the Lingshui Hyatt Regency is the first Hyatt-branded hotel in Hainan, located in the R&F Ocean Paradise Resort. The auction announcement shows that the target is "not vacated", which means the hotel is still in operation.

The adjacent operating ocean-themed park provides a certain passenger flow guarantee for the Lingshui Hyatt Regency. According to information on Trip.com, the hotel's off-season room rate is above 400 yuan per room, the peak season rate such as in January is above 700 yuan per room, and the holiday rate can exceed 1,000 yuan.

From the perspective of operation status, this is a target that "can continue to operate as soon as you take over".

Image source: JD Asset Trading Platform

Putting these two hotels back into R&F's asset map in Hainan, R&F has actively or passively sold a number of local assets since 2022.

Including in May 2022, R&F Properties sold the Dayingshan New City Center project in Haikou to Power Development at a transfer price of 1 billion yuan. The actual controller of the buyer Power Development is Zhang Liang, son of Zhang Li, co-chairman of R&F. This transaction is essentially characterized as a "blood transfusion" from related parties of the shareholder.

In 2023, the Lingshui Perfume Bay R&F Marriott Resort was transferred, and the transferee was Hainan Naxuyuan Industrial Co., Ltd. According to reports, the buyer is backed by a coal enterprise located in Yulin, Shaanxi Province.

Divestment Continues

Outside Hainan, R&F's divestment actions cover a longer front, focusing mainly on hotel assets.

Looking back to 2017, R&F Properties stepped in halfway in the transaction negotiation between Sunac China and Wanda, and after fierce game, the three-party pattern was finally formed where Sunac took over the cultural tourism assets and R&F took over the hotel assets.

According to the final confirmed plan, R&F Properties spent 18.955 billion yuan to acquire Wanda's hotel asset package, taking over 73 Wanda hotels at a price of nearly 60% of the original value.

At its peak in 2018, with 16 original hotels, 73 acquired hotels and 37 hotels under construction or in planning, R&F owned a total of 126 hotels, becoming the largest owner of luxury hotels in the world at that time.

However, due to the subsequent outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the overall downturn of the real estate industry and its own operational difficulties, R&F Properties' hotel assets have been successively sold, taken over and auctioned.

From 2022 to 2023, R&F's hotel asset divestment was mainly based on agreement sales. In 2022, it completed the sale of four hotel assets in Guangzhou, Beijing, Fuzhou and Zhenjiang, with a total capital recovery of more than 1.245 billion yuan.

In 2023, R&F completed the sale of three more projects: Wanda Realm Wuhan, Wanda Realm Xi'an and Wanda Vista Changsha.

In September 2024, due to an outstanding overseas debt of 614 million US dollars, 68 hotels and 1 office building in R&F's original "Wanda Hotel Asset Package" were taken over by receivers appointed by creditors, and R&F lost the leading right to dispose of this asset package.

Later, since the first batch of hotel assets entered the judicial auction procedure in September 2025, the disposal pace of R&F's hotel assets has accelerated significantly.

According to incomplete statistics, up to now, about 8 R&F hotel assets have been completed auction transactions, and about 13 hotels that failed the second auction have entered the liquidation procedure at the reserve price.

In addition, there are several projects that seem to have no follow-up after the failed auction, including the Wanda Realm Langfang, Wanda Realm Ningde, The Ritz-Carlton Chengdu, Wanda Realm Bengbu and other assets. According to reports, the number of R&F's hotel assets put up for auction should reach more than 30, but their endings are different.

Hotels are difficult to sell due to market structural reasons. At present, there is a clear dividing line in China's hotel auction market: targets above 300 million yuan are basically rarely inquired, while properties below 300 million yuan have a higher transaction probability.

A large number of targets in R&F's hotel asset package are exactly in the range of about 300 million yuan, or even lower. However, many related assets have some legacy problems such as debt disputes, aging facilities and equipment, and interruption of brand authorization caused by business suspension. Buyers are faced with a large number of legal relations to be sorted out and operation reconstruction costs.

Heavy assets, long payback period, uncertain cash flow... make many of R&F's hotels difficult to find buyers.

On the other hand, in addition to hotels, R&F has taken more actions in asset divestment. Since 2026, R&F has withdrawn from the old reconstruction project of Jishan Village in Tianhe, Guangzhou, and Guangzhou IGC Tianhui Plaza respectively.

R&F needs to divest assets, and the reason is written in its financial statements.

Although R&F took the lead in completing the full extension of all domestic and overseas bonds in 2022, winning itself a breathing space. However, the market environment in recent years and the huge debt scale make it difficult for R&F to cover its debts solely by relying on the cash flow generated from normal operations.

Data shows that in 2025, the company's annual contracted sales amounted to 14.21 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 26.5%; in the first half of 2026, R&F's contracted sales amounted to about 7.35 billion yuan, also a slight increase compared with the same period in 2025.

Financial reports for the same period show that as of the end of the first half of 2026, the total amount of R&F Properties' bank borrowings, domestic bonds, senior notes and other borrowings reached 106.59 billion yuan, of which 91.295 billion yuan will be due for repayment within the next 12 months. In contrast, R&F's total cash (including restricted cash) is only 2.6 billion yuan.

According to the latest disclosure of R&F Properties, as of July 31, 2026, the consolidated statement has interest-bearing debts with overdue amount of more than 10 million yuan, and the total overdue principal balance reached 47.109 billion yuan.

At present, the two Hainan hotels listed on the same day are a normal dynamic after R&F's asset divestment has entered the deep water zone.

Before the auction hammer falls, these two hotels will continue to be listed on the page, together with other uncompleted transaction targets of R&F across the country, waiting for a buyer willing to take over. Behind this, R&F's asset divestment is still difficult to press the pause button.

This article is from WeChat Official Account "Viewpoint", author: Viewpoint New Media, published with authorization from 36Kr.