The Sahara Group will bid for the TajMansingh hotel in central Delhi if it is put up for auction by the property's owner NDMC, Subrata Roy, chairman of diversified group, told ET in an exclusive interview this week.
"We are definitely after it,
we are working on it...If the hotel property is auctioned, we will go for it," Roy said at his residence in Lucknow. The group's interest in the hospitality sector is well known after a series of recent acquisitions in the US and the UK, including the Grosvenor House and New York's The Plaza. The Taj Mahal hotel on Mansingh Road in Delhi is now operated by the Tata Group's hotel arm Indian Hotels Company under a lease agreement with the New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC). The civic body is, however, considering a plan to auction the hotel after Tata's 33-year lease, plus a year's extension, ends this year. "For a property like this, we will be willing to offer a good price," Roy said. He did not disclose the price that such a prime property would fetch, preferring to just say that a group of key professionals has been set up to chalk out a plan that would make the group India's biggest hotel company with domestic and international assets. "Eighty percent of these hotels would be in India, of which a majority would be greenfield," he added. Sahara now owns the 223-room Sahara Star hotel that sits on 7.42 acres adjacent to the Mumbai domestic airport. It is no by means certain whether it will get the Taj Mansingh property considering the complications involved and the Tata Group's determination to retain it. The purchase, however, will boost the company's hospitality plans and go a long way in furthering its emergence as one of India's biggest companies.
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we are working on it...If the hotel property is auctioned, we will go for it," Roy said at his residence in Lucknow. The group's interest in the hospitality sector is well known after a series of recent acquisitions in the US and the UK, including the Grosvenor House and New York's The Plaza. The Taj Mahal hotel on Mansingh Road in Delhi is now operated by the Tata Group's hotel arm Indian Hotels Company under a lease agreement with the New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC). The civic body is, however, considering a plan to auction the hotel after Tata's 33-year lease, plus a year's extension, ends this year. "For a property like this, we will be willing to offer a good price," Roy said. He did not disclose the price that such a prime property would fetch, preferring to just say that a group of key professionals has been set up to chalk out a plan that would make the group India's biggest hotel company with domestic and international assets. "Eighty percent of these hotels would be in India, of which a majority would be greenfield," he added. Sahara now owns the 223-room Sahara Star hotel that sits on 7.42 acres adjacent to the Mumbai domestic airport. It is no by means certain whether it will get the Taj Mansingh property considering the complications involved and the Tata Group's determination to retain it. The purchase, however, will boost the company's hospitality plans and go a long way in furthering its emergence as one of India's biggest companies.
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