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Eros highest bidder for Kanishka Hotel

Parul Gupta

In the most expensive and widely participated deal in the India Tourism Development Corporation divestment programme till date, Satish Sud of the Eros group has emerged the highest bidder for the 315-room Kanishka Hotel in Delhi.

While the reserve price was set at close to Rs 700 million, Sud had bid about Rs 960 million for the property. The Eros group owns the Park Royal Intercontinental hotel in New Delhi.

ITDC's Kanishka Hotel attracted a record eight bidders, including the Chaudharys of Nepal, who have a 50:50 joint venture with the Taj group called Taj Asia; the promoters of Taj Lanka; Lalit Suri of Bharat Hotels; the Munjals of Hero Honda; A L Batra, promoter of Radisson Delhi; and Umesh Sarraf, owner of the Grand Hyatt in Delhi.

When contacted, Sud confirmed that he had been declared the highest bidder. He added that the total investment in the property, which would be positioned as a five-star hotel, would be around Rs 1.5 billion. Sud said the hotel would be completely refurbished within a year and this would require an additional investment of Rs 350-400 million.

The government also managed to sell Hotel Indraprastha, formerly known as Ashok Yatri.

Kerkar had the second highest bid of Rs 450 million through Oriental Structural Engineers. Earlier, the government had offered the two properties as a single property but found no takers. ITDC then recommended that the two properties be separated. These properties had earlier attracted 20 and 18 expressions of interests, respectively.

With the completion of the third tranche of the ITDC divestment, the government has managed to sell 17 of its properties, thereby adding about Rs 3.25 billion to its divestment kitty.

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