Oberois to float joint venture with Reliance

P. R. S. Oberoi (right), Chairman and Chief Executive, and Shib Sanker Mukherji, Vice-Chairman, EIH, at the company's 61st annual meeting in Kolkata on Tuesday. Photo: Arunangsu Roy Chowdhury

Having roped in the Mukesh Ambani group as a friendly-investor to stave off any takeover bid, the Oberois are now planning to float a joint venture to develop and run hotel properties in India and abroad.

This was revealed by EIH Ltd Chairman P. R. S. Oberoi during a pressmeet after the company's annual meeting. One property each in Bangalore and Goa, now on the anvil, “will in all probability be done jointly with Reliance,” he said. EIH Vice-Chairman S. S. Mukherjee said “Our interest is to manage the properties”.

Explaining last year's deal with the Mukesh Ambani group amid ITC increasing its equity stake in EIH, Mr. Oberoi told shareholders that he was looking for a friendly-shareholder who shared EIH's vision and would assist the EIH promoters. As such, while ITC now holds 14.8 per cent of the equity, Oberois have 34.5 per cent and RIL has 14.98. “So together we have that much holding,” he told reporters later saying Reliance was an important and friendly shareholder”. He also indicated openness to offering board-level positions.

The Bangalore project would be a 250-room hotel on an 8.5-acre plot opposite Hebbal Lake and in Goa, where EIH does not have any presence till now, would be a 130-room hotel on 55-acre beach-front location.

In Bangalore, there would also be 60-branded apartment, a concept that EIH plans to build as a future strategy. “Having luxury branded apartments or bungalows within the hotel project, is not a new-segment but a new method of building hotels,” Mr. Mukherjee said. The properties would be called Oberoi Residences and some were under implementation.

Mr. Oberoi also said that increasingly the company would go towards managing properties rather than setting up hotel projects on its own. “We own the largest number of hotels under the Oberoi and the Trident brand,” he said.

Beijing, Kolkata on scanner

He said he would visit China shortly to scout for opportunities there and Beijing and Shanghai are preferred locations.

To a question on whether there would be a second Oberoi hotel here, he said that the company was looking for private-land in New Town in Rajarhat where a 250-room Oberoi hotel, a 350-key Trident hotel with service apartment would be set up on four acres.