IHHR plans 5 hotels, to invest Rs 500 cr

IHHR Hospitality Private Limited will open five business hotels in India over the next three years, and has embarked on a Rs 500 crore (Rs 5 billion) investment plan to expand its footprint, senior company executives said on Friday.

The company would set up hotels -- under the brand name Ista -- in Hyderabad, Pune, Amritsar and Ahmedabad, besides one in Bangalore, its chairman Gautam Khanna said in Bangalore.

Managing Director Ashok Khanna said the company is investing Rs 500 crore for setting up hotels, including the first one that opened today marking its foray into the business hotels segment. In addition, it is opening its second destination Spa resort, Shanti Ananda Maurice, being built at a cost of $35 million, in Mauritius in December this year. 

The company, founded in 1998, plans to go public late next year after the opening of the Hyderabad hotel, coming up on a 15-acre plot, in July 2007, he said.

Right now, the company's equity-debt ratio is 60:40. "Bangalore hotel has been set up at a cost of Rs 82 crore," Khanna said. It has 143 rooms and suites. 

The company, whose flagship property is the destination spa Ananda located at Rishikesh at the foothills of Himalayas, would begin construction of the second hotel in Bangalore, he said. The hotel would have 70 rooms at the upmarket Koramangala by the end of the year.

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