Sterling Plans To List Golf Membership On Otcei

Sterling Holiday Resorts Ltd., is plans to list its golf membership on the OTC Exchange of India.

The company is contemplating the move for its golf course in Noida near New Delhi. If it comes through, this will be the first time that a golf membership is being listed on an exchange in India. However, this is not without precedent abroad. Malaysia for instance, has already done this, says Vivek Pai, a director of Sterling.

A market for such a product can be created given that golf membership is restricted and not all members are equally active.

The company has also scaled down the golf project itself. When conceived, it was a Rs 500 crore golf-based tourist centre project, equipped with all necessary facilities including a five-star hotel. But, it has now been decided to restrict the scope of the project to just the golf course entailing an investment of Rs 24 crore only.

 

The hotel project has been put on hold temporarily and will be revived once Sterling finds somebody to pump in at least a portion of the equity.

On other fronts too, the company has been on a massive cost cutting drive. At the junior sales executive level, close to 850 personnel have been asked to leave in the last year. This works out to a 25 per cent cut in the size of the workforce resulting in a 40 per cent cut in the wage bill.

Setting aside market rumours that the Sterling group is going through a financial crunch, R Subramanian, P N Mohan and Vivek Pai pointed out that the company has a sound asset base which alone is worth Rs 250 crore.

The Sterling group, it may be recalled, has been restructured into three entities - Sterling Holiday Resorts (India) Ltd, headed by P N Mohan, Sterling Teak Magnum under Vivek Pai and Sterling International Ltd involved in in-bound tourism looked after by R Subramanian.

Sterling International will be selling the Heritage concept of holidaying in India. The aim is to provide all tourist-related services under one umbrella and initial response to the concept is good, it is said.

In Swamimalai (a pilgrimage centre of repute in Tamil Nadu) for instance, a traditional house has been re-done to suit the modern tourism standard even while the traditional layout of the house remains unaltered.

This is a major hit with tourists and more such projects will be promoted.

At an informal meeting with newspersons in Chennai on Friday, Sterling top brass were at pains to completely de-link the Sterling group from Maxworth