 TAJGVK acquires hotel in Chennai
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The Hyderabad-based TAJGVK
Hotels and Resorts Ltd has acquired a new hotel property in Chennai which will
become fully operational by the end of next year or early 2006, its chairman G V
Krishna Reddy said in Chennai on December 20.
A share purchase agreement for
acquiring 100 per cent equity capital of Sri Tripurasundari Hotels Ltd (STHL),
marking the takeover by TAJGVK, was signed earlier in the day, Krishna Reddy
said.
The new property has 212
guestroom bays which would be scaled up to five-star standards and converted to
a below-200 room property on an investment of Rs 80 to Rs 100 crore, Reddy said,
adding that the property, off arterial Anna Salai (Mount Road), had been
acquired at a cost of Rs 32 crore.
Reddy said the company was
planning to open more hotels in other parts of south India, western and northern
India in the coming years as there was "great potential" for
hospitality business in the country after liberalisation.
Recently, TAJGVK had acquired a
152-room hotel in Chandigarh, which would soon be upgraded to five-star status,
thus making it the first five-star hotel in that city. The Chennai hotel is the
second acquisition.
With a turnover of Rs 88 crore
in 2003-04, TAJGVK has also plans to open 15 'budget hotels' in the country
every year, of which seven had already been identified.
The hotel acquired from STHL is
strategically located between Club House Road (or Subramaniam Road) and Woods
Road, Krishna Reddy said, adding that its proximity to the Taj Group's Connemara
Hotel would not affect its business.
TAJGVK is a joint venture
formed through a strategic alliance between the Taj Group of Hotels and the GVK
group in 1999-2000.
Krishna assured that the
Chennai hotel would make adequate arrangements for insfrastructure, including
water and parking. A farm house near Chennai would be acquired soon to meet the
water requirements of the city hotel, he added.
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