Covelong Beach, Coromandel To Be Merged With Oriental Hotels

The Taj group is consolidating its hotel business by merging Covelong Beach Hotel and Coromandel Hotels with Oriental Hotels, an associate company of Indian Hotels. The board of Oriental Hotels is meeting tomorrow to consider the proposed merger of the two hotels with itself.

Indian Hotels, which runs the Taj brand, has approximately 30 per cent stake in Oriental Hotels which in turn has equity in Covelong Beach Hotel. Coromandel is a wholly owned subsidiary of Oriental Hotels.

Explaining the rationale behind the move, senior executives at Indian Hotels said: "The effort is part of a consolidation drive undertaken by the Taj group to cut down on the number of intermediary companies and incorporate a greater level of transparency."

 

Oriental Hotels owns Taj Malabar in Kochi, Taj Residency in Vishakapatnam, Fisherman's Cove and Taj Coromandel in Chennai.

Recently, Oriental Hotels and OHL International (HK) had transferred their equity shares in Taj Maldives Pte in favour of Taj Asia, the newly formed joint venture company. As a result, Taj Maldives Pte ceased to be a subsidiary of the Oriental Hotels.

Taj Asia is the holding company which owns and manages properties in Southeast Asia. The Taj group had offloaded a 50 per cent stake to the Chaudhary group of Nepal. The balance 50 per cent is split between Oriental Hotels and Indian Hotels.

Oriental Hotels holds around 10 per cent stake in Taj International, the holding company of its London property, St. James Court.

Meanwhile, Indian Hotels has reported a profit after tax of Rs 82.61 crore for the second quarter ended September 2001 as compared with Rs 8.47 crore in the corresponding period of the previous year. Turnover increased 4 per cent from Rs 142.94 crore to Rs 147.27 crore in the same period.

Despite the slowdown, the company has maintained its revenues. Profit increased because of the Rs 88.64 crore received on account of the hiving off its air-catering business to a new 51:49 joint venture with Singapore Airport Terminal Services, a subsidiary of Singapore Airlines.