DLF close to selling Amanresorts to Starwood Capital for Rs1,800 crore: report
29 Nov 2012
India's biggest real estate developer DLF Ltd is close to selling its luxury hotel chain Amanresorts to US-based investment firm Starwood Capital Group for $325 million (Rs1,800 crore), the Business Standard today reported, citing unnamed sources.
Amanresorts owns and manages 25 small luxury resorts worldwide, and cash-strapped DLF will offload its stake in the chain, retaining the Aman property in Delhi, the report said.
Starwood and a Thailand-based company were leading the race to buy Aman, but Starwood has emerged as the preffered bidder and has opened an escrow account with DLF for $10 million (Rs55 crore).
Delhi-based DLF is seeking to raise as much as Rs10,000 crore ($2.2 billion) through asset sales to repay its massive Rs21,000 core debt.
Founded in 1988 by Adrian Zecha and based in Singapore. Amanresorts operates as a subsidiary of DLF.
It owns, operates, and manages resorts in Bhutan, Cambodia, China, France, Greece, India, Indonesia, Laos, Montenegro, Morocco, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Turkey, the Turks and Caicos Islands, and the US.
With $21 billion in assets under management, Greenwich, Connecticut-based Starwood Capital focusses on investing in real estate.
It has completed over 465 transactions representing assets of nearly $35 billion as of June 30, 2012.