With an arbitrator terminating a 2005 agreement to sell Centaur Hotel in Juhu, Mumbai, promoters of the property, now Tulip Star, are examining new options of either putting up the property for sale again or developing it, on their own.
V Hotels, owners of Centaur Hotel, is run by Ajit Baburao Kerkar and family, also promoters of Mumbai-based tour operator Cox & Kings.
Speaking to FE, Peter Kerkar, director, Cox & Kings, and son of Ajit Kerkar said, ?We may look at selling it or decide to develop it on our own.?
Cox & Kings owns 30.4% in Tulip Star Hotels that, in turn, owns 50% in V Hotels. He added that at the current market rate, the valuation of the property could be in the range of R30,000 per square feet. Located on approximately 2,66,000 square feet of land in Mumbai, Tulip Star has around 400 rooms and other facilities like restaurants, banqueting, health club, business centre, shopping area.
The Centaur, Juhu, was among the first to go under the divestment drive of the government in early 2000s. The hotel, sold for R153 crore in 2001 to the Kerkar family, soon ran into funding problems. It was in 2005 that Kerkar decided to jointly develop the property with Oberoi Realty’s Vikas Oberoi and DB Realty’s Shahid Balwa and Vinod Goenka.
However, the association of V Hotels with Siddhivinayak Realties (SRPL), an equal joint venture between Oberoi’s arm Oberoi Constructions and DB Realty’s promoters Balwa and Goenka, ran into trouble.
The matter again came to the limelight again recently, when Oberoi Realty informed the bourses that agreement between V Hotels and SRPL has been terminated by the arbitrator’s ruling of July 13. The award said SRPL is liable to receive R73 crore from V Hotels, which it had initially paid to the company within 90 days.
Oberoi further said SRPL will pursue legal recourse challenging the arbitrator?s award in the Centaur Juhu matter and it has filed an arbitration petition in the Bombay High Court seeking an injunction against V Hotels.
However, Kerkar seemed unperturbed by this.