ITC bullish on paper, hotels business

Diversified conglomerate ITC would aggressively expand in the areas of paper manufacturing and  hotels as these businesses have great potential, company Chairman Y C Deveshwar said today.

"We are quite bullish on the paper and hotels businesses. We want to invest more in these areas," he said after the company's 98th annual general meeting.

Deveshwar said ITC was looking for around 1,500-2,000 acres to set up a greenfield paper manufacturing plant.

ITC, he said, had enough money to fund the project, but availability of land was a major issue. ITC was scouting for land in Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat.

According to him, the company would require investments of around Rs 4,000-5,000 crore for setting up a half-a-million tonne paper manufacturing plant.

On the hotels front, he said ITC was keen on acquiring properties at reasonable prices. The hotel industry, which had seen a downturn due to the slowdown, was now on the verge of a revival, Deveshwar said.

Asked whether ITC had drawn up any strategy regarding East India Hotels, in which it has 14.98 per cent stake, Deveshwar said "we are not keen on any hostile bids."

Besides this, the company has plans to set up properties in Chennai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Amritsar and Bhubaneswar.