Dubai Holding will hold onto Jumeirah Group

Government-owned Dubai Holding is not planning to sell its luxury hotel chain Jumeirah Group to pay up its debt maturing next year, Jumeirah Group’s chairman, Gerald Lawless, said in an interview with Forbes magazine. Dubai Holding has $1.9 billion of debt maturing in the first half of 2010.

“Dubai Holding will be fine,” Lawless told Forbes, adding that the current crisis in Dubai would soon bottom out. “Jumeirah and Dubai Holding are part of each other. Jumeirah is not going anywhere.”