Carlson Rezidor shows interest in buying hotel portfolios

Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group, which will have 82 hotels across the country by the year-end, is open to acquiring hotel portfolios in order to expand its presence, according to a top company official.

 “With the view of our future investors, we might be much more interested in mergers and acquisitions in general and that does not exclude India,” Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group Asia Pacific president Thorsten Kirschke told DH.

 “I am not sure that we have quite arrived at a point where we want to own real estate in India,” Kirschke added.

According to Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group South Asia chief executive officer Raj Rana, the company will evaluate likely opportunities in the country but has not looked at anything specifically at this point of time.

 “We are not looking for individual property acquisitions. As far as portfolio acquisitions are concerned, if the commercials were to make sense and the underlying performance is there, we would evaluate,” Rana said.

 Carlson, which came into India in 1998, by opening a Radisson Blu Plaza in New Delhi, will be starting new hotels in Faridabad, Bengaluru, Coimbatore and Hinjewadi in Pune by 2016-end taking its total presence in the country to 82 properties. The company currently operates the Radisson Blu, Radisson, Radisson Red, Park Plaza, Park Inn and Country Inns & Suits brands in the country. The company, which is planning to have 170 properties by 2020, may look at revising its growth projections going forward as well.

 “We have been having an average growth rate of 17.1% since 2010. If that rate were to continue, we are breaking through the 200 mark by 2020 but I want to be cautiously managing expectations rather than overpromise and under deliver,” Kirschke said.

 “The government has been talking about single window clearance, reduced red tape and bureaucracy, e-visa facilitation being extended to more countries and reduction in airfares to smaller towns. All these steps as they start happening, they will add to the acceleration of our brands and indeed our projection numbers for 2020 could be revised,” Rana said.