India’s richest man invests in luxury Oberoi hotels

Mumbai: A unit of India’s largest private firm Reliance Industries has bought a 14 per cent stake in one of the country's most luxurious hotel chains in a $217-million deal, the companies said on Monday.

The giant conglomerate, headed by India's richest man Mukesh Ambani, said its unit Reliance Industries Investment and Holding had acquired a 14.12 per cent stake in East India Hotels, which owns the Oberoi and Trident brands.

The deal is worth Rs10.2 billion ($217 million), both firms said in separate statements. It followed the sale of shares by three East India Hotels stakeholders.

In November 2008, The Oberoi and adjoining Trident hotels in south Mumbai were both stormed by Islamist militants as part of a wider, coordinated assault on India's financial capital that killed 166 and wounded more than 300.

Thirty-five people died at The Oberoi and Trident. The Trident reopened within a month of the carnage but the more badly damaged Oberoi only began receiving visitors again in April.

East India Hotels and the Indian Hotels Company Ltd, a unit of the giant Tata Group that operates the luxury Taj Mahal Palace and Tower hotel, which was also attacked, both saw profits plunge after the high-profile assault.

But both are attempting to claw back losses. EIH swung into a quarterly net loss of 159 million rupees for the three months to June, from a profit of 190.5 million rupees a year earlier.

Reliance Industries said both hotels had been developed into "premier international brands" and promised no change in management or operational control at the parent company.