| Emaar MGF-Whitbread in JV; to invest $600mn |
| BS Reporter / New Delhi June 19, 2007 |
| Emaar MGF has forged a 50:50 joint venture (JV) with Whitbread, a hospitality firm from the United Kingdom, to develop 80 hotels of the brand Premier Travel Inn. The JV will invest $600 million (about Rs 2,500 crore) by 2017. Targeting the business and budget category, these hotels will offer limited services and the room will be priced between Rs 2,400-Rs 3,600. The 80 hotels will in all comprise 12,000 rooms. "The JV is in line with our ambitious hospitality plans and will serve to be a quantum leap for the sector in the country," Shravan Gupta, executive vice chairman and managing director, Emaar MGF said in a statement. This development folows a recent JV that Emaar MGF had forged with Accor Hotels to set up 100 Formule 1 hotels across the country at an investment of $300 million. In addition to this, Emaar MGF, is also planning to set up hotels designed by maestro Giorgio Armani at Goa, New Delhi and Mumbai. "We have two location possibilities in Goa. As far as Delhi is concerned, one of the two hotel sites that we had acquired from DDA (Delhi Development Authority) at Jasola could be used for the Armani hotel. We still do not have a site for Mumbai," Gupta had earlier told Business Standard. The company is planning to enter the capital markets in the next 12-18 months to raise over Rs 8,000 crore. "Transparency is not be such a big issue with our company. But it does provide access to raising capital cheaply from retail investors," Gupta had said. Last month, Emaar MGF had forged a 50:50 JV with Leighton Group |
