Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Indian Hotels Company Limited Investors Call. On the call we have with us Mr. Puneet Chhatwal, Managing Director and CEO IHCL, and Mr. Ankur Dalwani, EVP and CFO IHCL. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing *10 on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Puneet Chhatwal. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining the call at this time, and we would like to share with you what we believe is a key milestone that we have achieved in the lifecycle of Indian Hotels Company Limited. Having commenced with the reimagination of our brand scape and solidifying the Taj brand in 2017-2018 to a journey that is still ongoing, where we significantly scaled up the Taj brand, renovated the Taj hotels, and upgraded a lot of Vivanta-branded hotels because they had gone through a downgrade because of lack of renovation monies post 26/11. It was time to start also focusing on our second important pillar, which was Ginger.
We reimagined Ginger in 2018-2019, and then there was a certain delay for a couple of years because of COVID, and since then, Ginger became highly profitable, marching very fast towards the INR 1,000 crore revenue and more than INR 350 crores in EBITDA. Given that Ginger had also reached more than 100 hotel portfolios, and given that we had zero net debt and a lot of cash, it was time to look for an inorganic growth opportunity which could help the current Ginger portfolio as well as add new hotels on a capital light model so that the brand awareness of the Ginger brand is very much enhanced. There came the various opportunities that we studied.
Clarks hotels and resorts represented a good opportunity for us because of a shared value, shared purpose in the organization, which is 75 years old, and the management that helped create a 150-plus hotels portfolio together with Pride and Pride Rama properties. Now, what this does is it gets us 135 hotels under the Clarks brand, which we will, the majority of which, will get repositioned and reimagined as Ginger hotels, totaling almost 7,000 keys in 100-plus locations. Of these 135, 125 are managed properties, 10 are on a capital light model with operating leases. Hence, the pipeline is extremely strong of the entire portfolio which will be coming.
As I mentioned at the outset in a brief introduction, the four key strategic initiatives that kind of made this as a convincing proposition for the management was, number one, Ginger brand equity amplification, which is 70% hotels in new geographies in India. We had the old geography where Ginger was present. We get 70% more, which are in new areas, which is adding new dots on the map. Given the heterogeneous nature of India and rapid scaling up, this looked like a very interesting opportunity where all these hotels were existing. Let's not forget, since the launch of Ginger, it has taken us almost 20 years to get to a portfolio which is smaller than the size of this rebranding opportunity that was available to us. This leads to a leadership in the mid-scale segment.
Undoubtedly, now Ginger becomes the market leader in the mid-market segment over the next 12 to 18 months. As we continue our growth journey, this almost 250 hotels portfolio should cross 300-plus easily over the next 18 months or so. There is a significant north-like-for-like growth, and this is also helping us in our industry-leading pipeline. All this ultimately weaves in very well into our Xcelerate 2030 strategy, which we have articulated in very objective terms to all of you. We also know that the mid-scale segment in India is fastest growing. From 2014, when there were 100,000 branded rooms, the lower end was almost 40% of the total supply. Ten years later, that number went to 43%, and we think that in another five to six years, by 2030, this segment or this market share of this segment will definitely be closer to 50% or so.
A lot of strong growth is coming into this segment, mainly because as India's population grows from 1.4 billion to 1.5 billion, if one-third of this population is relevant, then the competitiveness as well as the bigger share will come into one-third of the population, which is 500 million. Assuming that one-third may not be so relevant for the hotel sector, that one-third of 500 million is a very, very big number. We feel that with Ginger, we will be very well positioned to address the needs and wants of that market segment. I think very important is also conversion to unlocking synergies will be conversions to revenue share from management contracts, which we have successfully done with Ginger properties that we have signed or opened in the last 18 months, and also unlocking synergies wherever there is a market overlap.
If in a market we already have a Ginger, and by virtue of this M&A, we get more Ginger opportunities, it will create cost synergies in the existing portfolio as well as in the portfolio that is coming in. The other ways to benefit would be from our Indian Hotels sales and distribution backbone, which is very, very strong, which has proven the test of time. Also, this segment is really very interesting for loyalty because at the upper end, at the luxury level, loyalty is not as important as the experiential or the service part is, but people do like to collect loyalty points at this level of the market. Tata Neu will play a very important and a very big role going forward. The operational synergies I mentioned will also be a key synergy driver. Very importantly, our procurement strength will grow by leaps and bounds.
I think the addition of such a significant number of hotels should help The Indian Hotels Company Limited in general and the Ginger brand in particular in getting synergies in procurement, synergies in shared services. Shared services, I mean accounting, controlling, all back-of-office operations, including IT, and significantly enhancing the brand equity of the Ginger brand in India, especially with all the changes we made, including the all-day dining concept of Qmin being added to the existing Ginger. That will be the case when we transition these hotels to the Ginger brand. They will strictly follow a property improvement plan. Most of the restaurants, wherever possible, will get rebranded to Qmin, and that will create an unlocked value also for the Qmin brand within such a large portfolio. Therefore, we see this as a growth opportunity with almost 7,000 keys, very well fitting to the Ginger brand.
We have done at the same time a sales and distribution agreement with the boutique luxury in terms of SeleQtions, which is very, very appreciated in India as a unique value proposition, especially in spiritual sectors. The SeleQtions Ramada, it would be fair to say, in Benares has become a benchmark at this level of hospitality. As we have consistently shared in various quarterly calls, we do believe that the Ginger brand, with the property improvements, with the transition to lean luxe, is very much capable of driving higher average rates, higher occupancies, and most of the properties that we have opened in the recent past, like Mumbai Airport, like Goa, like Bhubaneswar, like Nagpur Airport, Ginger in Sanand or Aurangabad, all drive more than 50% EBITDA, which makes us extremely confident of repeating this performance with the Clarks portfolio also.
Having said this, SeleQtions has 19 hotels, of which 10 are in operation, totaling around 360, 380 keys. Of this 10 in operation, there is another 9 in pipeline. This will help us add or also help the owners grow the Ginger brand going forward. With that, I hand over to my colleague, the CFO, Mr. Ankur Dalwani, to walk you through the arrangements of the kind of transaction structure we have entered into. Over to you, Ankur.
Yeah, thank you, Stefan. I think on the transaction structure, I think we have announced some detail of the same. Let me walk you through the more sort of generalities on the transaction structure. This is a total investment of INR 204 crore in the two companies, A&K and Pride, and it is, as mentioned on the slide, INR 110 crore into A&K and INR 94 crore in Pride. Out of the INR 204 crore, substantially, almost 80% is primary investment, and the balance is a small secondary investment in the transaction, which means there is a large component sitting in the companies as capital for future growth, which will include some of the PIPs, which was mentioned earlier by Mr.
Chhatwal, and also for capturing the opportunity to convert potentially a large portion of current owners and the future owners in the portfolio towards from management contracts to revenue share. Also, any future opportunity which may come up by the team can also get captured or funded by that capital sitting there. Essentially, a lot of the cash is basically going into the companies and enabling them and making them future-ready for growth. Additionally, the two companies, A&K and Pride, will also sign branding and distribution arrangements for paying fees to IHCL, and this will be entered into the entire portfolio for not only the hotels which are under revenue share, but also for the hotels which are under management contract, generating an incremental fee for IHCL.
Similarly, on the marketing and distribution agreement, which has already been signed with Bridge Hospitality, there is an incremental fee which will flow to IHCL as part of the distribution arrangement which has been signed up. If I quickly walk you through some of the current financials which are in the public domain and some more details on that, if you see the FY2025 figures, it's about INR 33 crore of top line and an enterprise revenue of close to INR 300 crore, and the company has an EBITDA of INR 7 crore and an EBITDA of INR 3 crore. This is on the basis of current operations of the company.
If you look at the chart on the right on the slide, it kind of puts out where we think we could actually drive the business in the next three to four years, and in line with the FY 2030 targets, close to about INR 100 crore of revenue from existing operation plus the impact of migrating the portfolio to Ginger and doing the lean luxe renovations in some of those. That should get us to about INR 100 crore. Additionally, this does not capture any upside from management contracts shifting to revenue share, which could actually be close to INR 50 to 75 crore, which we think is a conservative number. Per hotel, typically INR 6 to 8 crore of revenue.
It is basically getting 7 to 8 hotels converted, which actually should not be very difficult given that the management team currently already has a track record of migrating one hotel from management contract to revenue share, which has actually added about INR 4 crore of revenue in FY 2026 itself. We'll add INR 4 crore of revenue in FY 2026 itself. This is a conversation which we will deep dive into as we move forward in the transaction after closing the transaction. If I can give you a quick snapshot of the predictive financials, which has also been put out in the deck, FY 2027 actually will be the first full year of sort of once the transaction is closed, and we think we can actually get closer to INR 60 crore of revenues in that year.
It will result in overall margins coming closer to 30% on EBITDA and an IHCL consolidated EBITDA, which includes the fee we will earn from the hotels to close to INR 20 crore. Going forward to FY 2030, we think we are on track. We will be on track to get to about INR 100 crore of top line and generating a consolidated EBITDA of close to INR 60 crore, which includes INR 20 crore of fee and INR 40 crore coming from the hotel. Those are the broad financials we have sort of solved for while sort of doing the transaction. Like I said, this does not include the opportunity to convert the management contracts to revenue share going forward. Also, I think a couple of things to note from the Ginger portfolio side, which Mr. Chhatwal also referred to.
One was obviously the strong growth, but also the fact that most of the hotels which have actually moved to lean luxe as a portfolio have a margin close to 50% plus on EBITDA. The fact that the occupancy as well as the RevPAR growth are much higher for these hotels as compared to the industry average for this category. I think that's where I'll stop now, and we can take questions from now.
Thank you very much. We will now begin with the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star, then one on their touchtone phone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star, then two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking your question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Again, to register for a question, please press star, then one. Our first question comes from the line of Shaleen from UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. Congratulations to the management for starting their inorganic journey. I've been, you all are waiting for that, and it seems like it looks like a good deal. One, just to understand the financials, the projected financials which you're putting out. If I take whatever FY 2028 or FY 2030 numbers, we are talking about INR 40 crore EBITDA and INR 20 crore fee, right? INR 60 crore console. Is it right to understand that, let's say in FY 2030, the INR 20 crore fee belongs to us, also that 51% of that INR 40 crore will also belong to us?
Yeah, that's right. Essentially, as you know, we will consolidate the full EBITDA, not the 51%. As far as the IHCL consolidated EBITDA, it'll go up by INR 60 crore.
Right. Ankur, the enterprise value we have given is what, INR 408 crore roughly? Or INR 405?
204 crores of total investment size, which is about INR 160 crores in primary and the rest being secondary. If you do the maths on that, the enterprise value is about INR 240 crores.
INR 240 crore of enterprise value and whatever, like FY 2027, FY 2028, or FY 2030. We are on FY 2030, it looks like a very good deal. Even on FY 2027, we are calling out INR 20 crore, so 12 times EV/EBITDA.
That's right.
All right. Okay.
Basically, the transaction has enabled two things. One is obviously getting into a partnership with A&K and Pride and the promoter group there, which will obviously enhance the portfolio itself, you know, which is all the synergies which Mr. Chhatwal referred to, and deploying the Ginger playbook on that. That's why the right number would be actually FY 2028 because FY 2027 will still be a year of transition. Even if you look at FY 2027, there is actually a trajectory for upliftment on EBITDA margin and then consequently on EBITDA itself. That is a INR 10 crore number if you see the numbers I've given out, and then the incremental fee, which is also enabled because of the transaction. The INR 10 crores is after paying the fee.
Effectively, there are some parts of the business which are going to have where it will obviously be an expense, and therefore, the EBITDA number is after the fee. For example, Bridge Hotels is actually not something which we have a stake in the company right now, so that fee will straight away come to us. This is on the enterprise revenues of the company and not the top line number, which is only a INR 60 crore here. If you look at the enterprise revenue, it will be much higher, as is the case in FY 2025 itself.
No, no, fair enough. If I look at even 2027 or 2028, the kind of growth trajectory you are talking about, tripling the EBITDA in the next three years, so 12 times TV EBITDA paying is pretty good. Even if you achieve half of it, it's great. No argument on that. Just my personal view here. All right. The second thing, how are you thinking about the brand here? Like, why? A very basic question, like, why would we put it as Ginger? Why would this management like to have a Ginger and not Clarks? Is it because Clarks is not getting enough traction? What were the possible reasons for them to move into Ginger?
Shaleen, very good question. One of the reasons is traditionally this company is known for full-service Clarks Hotel because that's what their grandfather had created. The iconic Clarks Amir in Jaipur and Clarks Sawad in Lucknow or Clarks Shiraz in Agra, these were the five key assets. By doing these Clarks Inn and Clarks Suites and Clarks Inn and Suites and Clarks whatever other connotations actually diluted the Clarks brand equity. That's from their side. From our point of view, we are not interested in another new brand in mid-market till we get to 300 to 500 hotels with one of the brands. In the mid-market, scale is very important. Just having 10, 15, 20, 30 hotels here or there, as you have seen with Ginger, does not help. It's only of late in the last two and a half years that Ginger has pivoted.
This was another opportunity for it to go another notch higher and definitely support all our other ventures that we have undertaken and shared with all of you, like Mopai Airport, like Kolkata Airport, like opening of Ikta Nagar in the next six to eight weeks, plus the opening of Bangalore Airport next year. All these things will give an absolute boost to the brand awareness of Ginger brand. That's why we'd rather have it in one brand. Exactly what we did with Taj and continue to do with Taj, make one brand clean and pure instead of being all over the place.
Sorry, sir. Just one more question in continuation with this. Like INR 160, 163 crore of primary. Can we understand what's the usage of that? Will it be to upkeep the current property or will it be for the expansion? We do not know what the condition of these assets is right now, right? Just some color on that.
Some of it will go to, sir, like you know, most of the portfolio is actually management contracts. The responsibility of incurring CapEx actually lies largely with the owners. Essentially, our approach there will be to say that there is a watch list available to expedite this upgradation. This is obviously a conversation to be had once the transaction closes. The idea is to see how we can use this capital which is available at disposal to bring most or if not all the hotels onto the Ginger platform as quickly as possible with the same similar sort of standard which is deployed by the Ginger lean luxe model so that the unlocking of value and upliftment on occupancy and ARR happens quickly. That's where the bulk of the capital will go.
The other opportunity, which is basically also what I mentioned, alluded to earlier, was the moving from management contracts to revenue share. Typically, this could be a couple of crores to INR 5 crore kind of investment, which may happen depending on if an owner wants to expand and he has already got the SSI in his property but doesn't have the funds to expand. The conversations of moving from a management contract to revenue share becomes a much more easier conversation. We've identified already about 8 to 10 properties, which we will start acting once the transaction closes. That's the second use of capital. The third could obviously be kind of replicating the Ginger big box model, which is something which has also been our journey over the last seven years, and we've realized how Ginger big boxes have delivered in the last few years.
As you know, Ginger Mumbai Airport is a classic example of delivering close to INR 100 crore of revenue and INR 50 crore plus EBITDA in the first full year of operations. I think that's the third opportunity where some of the capital could go, where the management team, which is the current management team, the promoter group, will continue to run the business. It's up to them to then source opportunities which can fit into their sort of the kind of hotels they would want to own. Big box also opens up the third sort of use of capital.
Got it, sir. Just last bit, do you only have a Ginger in mind, or do you think there is a scope for Gateway as well here?
There could be, Shaleen, one or the other because we have to drive the best value. I don't think 100% of the hotels will fit into Ginger. We do believe that the majority, significant majority, anything between 85% to 90% for Ginger is fine. The rest, we will take a call during this period of completion of the deal and find the best value proposition. Of course, there will be opportunity for a Clarks exotic that can obviously become a Gateway.
Yeah, or someone can be on a SeleQtions platform.
On the SeleQtions platform, yeah.
Got it, sir. Got it. Thank you so much. I'll join back the queue.
Other questions, you can take offline with us later.
Right, sir. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Prateek Kumar from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Yeah, I'm Ankur Dalwani for the deal. My first question is regarding the brand positioning overall. While you alluded to the fact that this segment, next-year segment, is a growing segment, etc., we have also historically said that our focus is on the premium segment where there is the lowest growth in capacity by industry peers, which will continue to benefit the pricing, etc., and profitability. Now we are expanding significantly in mid-scale. I understand it is management contract. As a result, maybe the stakes are not as high in terms of your cap employed. How do we think about your overall brand positioning as a company going forward?
Sorry, Prateek, I don't understand. I think it has to be very clear that the crown jewel of our brand scape was, is, and will always remain Taj, not only of our brand scape, but of our company and of Tata Group and of India. However, we have created a brand scape, and in our endeavor to do comprehensive brand management, one of the critical factors in mid-scale or a little bit above or below mid-scale is scaling of the brands. That is highly critical for Ginger. It's highly critical for even our homestay, amã, or for Tree of Life. Under Xcelerate 2030, we also articulated that the majority of the future growth will come through Gateway, Ginger, Tree of Life.
We are absolutely in line with that, but we should not forget that the Taj is something which was, is, and will always remain the priority, and that is what will define our culture. Our core values, which are common throughout the brands, are based on the values of trust, awareness, and joy. That's what Taj stands for. We are definitely making far more progress with Taj. Today, the size of the luxury brand is possibly among the top three in the world, number one. Number two, Taj has been consistently rated as the world's strongest hotel brand by Brand Finance and India's strongest brand across all sectors since the last five years and four years on a world platform basis.
Let there be, and I'm very thankful to you for raising this directly or indirectly, or if you meant it or not, so that we have the opportunity to once more make it very clear that what defines us is Taj, and that is not changing in the short, medium, or long term, and that this investment justifies. This kind of investment for a 51% stake will not justify even one Taj property. That's the difference in scale and absolute luxury and quality.
Yeah, I think just to add, as you have seen from our quarterly investor decks, we've always talked about putting out CapEx on the balance sheet for the hotels which we are going to develop. This includes the three, four ones which are already in the public domain. For example, the Bandstand one, the next to Fort Aguada, Aguada Plateau, and also the one in Shiroda. All these are under the brand Taj or similar luxury brands, Taj and Ranchi. I think that's never, it's not an either/or situation. I think we've talked about this in the past. It's a very heterogeneous country, and you have to, being the market leader, you have to cater to different segments of the consumer.
I think this is actually one of the best ways to scale up Ginger because, like we've said in the past, the potential for Ginger brand or the mid-scale brand for the company is 1,000 Gingers. You cannot get there organically. It'll just take too long. To make this effective and make it really happen in a practical way, this is probably the best and the most efficient way of doing it. We are very happy that we've got a partner who actually echoes that sentiment. It's actually a lot of good excitement out here on this.
Thank you. My question is, all the Clarks hotels in India are under these two groups, and all of them will migrate to Ginger eventually. Are there more Clarks hotels under any other group in the country? Just a clarification.
Yes, they are within the same family. This is like a legacy issue. They have several companies. I think almost all the asset-light hotels are actually covered in this, and maybe a few asset-heavy are actually not covered in this. That's probably single digit, maybe less than 10, so like four to five kind of number. This is the beginning of a relationship, so we'll see how the relationship develops going forward.
Sure. One question on your expanding room number of hotels, which is great news. More like a theoretical question on management bandwidth. Does this kind of scaling of management contract, which is kind of a global model for other companies like Marriott, etc., how should we think of management bandwidth and the hiring which you would require to manage so many hotels?
Thank you, Prateek, for this question. The job done by these three young cousins and brothers was so phenomenal in making 150 hotels that that is one of the reasons we have integrated them in the journey forward. They will continue to drive growth and management. We will obviously give them the required support of the bandwidth that IHCL has. Maybe a couple of our people will also go there in the management, and we will run it through a proper governance structure. We have a lot of experience in doing that, even with publicly listed entities. As you know, we have OHL, we have Taj GVK, we have Panaras Hotels, we have PM Hotels. In a similar kind of a way, this will be run by the current ownership. They just get diluted, and we will give them a few of our stalwarts.
That way, the skill sets will get complemented and will not put any kind of strain on our existing talent pipeline or on our bandwidth, rather enhance it. Seeing these growth opportunities, you should not underestimate how many people in the last five, seven years have had the opportunity to grow with us. That means all these new brands, all this high growth of our portfolio has given a growth platform and a growth mindset to the entire company. I think we are following the same formula, and we are very confident that what these people have been able to do without any capital or without any big company backing behind them, that with our help, they will even be able to perform at a much higher level and a faster rate.
Thank you, sir. I'll get back to the queue on more questions.
Thank you, Prateek.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Achal Kumar from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thanks for taking my question, and I wish you all the best for this new investment. My first question is around conversions to the revenue share. You've been talking that there will be an opportunity to convert to a revenue share model. I just want to understand, is it like straight away at your will you can convert, or is there a condition in that how easily it is to convert from the management contract to revenue share? If you could please give us a bit of a color on that, that would be helpful.
Ankur, thanks for the question. It's not straightforward, and that's why if you see our projections, which we gave out, we haven't really included that portion. We have just talked about this as a potential upside. The reason why we think it's real and not something imaginary is because the current management team has already demonstrated success on this front by actually converting a hotel in Rajasthan, in Ajmer, from a management contract to revenue share. It is very much a real opportunity, and it requires hotel-by-hotel discussion because every owner will need some kind of support as he has to either expand or he's not able to manage the payroll, etc. This is how this typically happens. We've also had that in our portfolio in the past.
It will evolve over a period of time, but we are confident that in the next, I mean, if you look at the portfolio, we're talking about 135 hotels. Even if we get 10%, we're talking about 13 hotels, which can easily give you INR 60 to 75 crore of top line itself, right? I think, and then obviously much higher contribution in terms of EBITDA as well. I think that's the opportunity set, and I think it's a real set, but we can only give you more color when we close the transaction and sit down and do a more granular exercise on the portfolio, but pretty much something which we are focused on.
Right. My second question was, you know, in terms of financial, just want to understand because you have shown the projections to FY 2030 wherein you are showing EBITDA margin reaching 38%, while on one of the slides, and of course, I mean, you in Ginger, you're generating a much higher EBITDA margin. Are you not thinking or are you not expecting these hotels to reach to the current EBITDA margin you're generating in Ginger? How does it work like?
No, I think if you see first, like I said, 2027 here is a year of transition, and therefore, after that, it'll take one or two years for the benefit of the lean luxe or the PIPs to actually sort of take effect. That's why if you see by FY 2050, we are getting to a 50% EBITDA margin. Can it happen earlier? Potentially, yes. It's also something which we have to get into far more granularity in terms of actually figuring out how quickly the migration happens to Ginger and the lean luxe implementation. There is a stabilization phase in each of this, which is also the experience we've had with our own Ginger lean luxe sort of investments, which have happened over the last few years.
Right. Okay. Fair enough. Thanks. I think those are my questions. I'll come back to the queue.
Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll take the last question from the line of Karan Khanna from Ambit Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. Please first, if you can look at the Clarks portfolio, Clarks has presence across many brands. You've acquired just three of them. Could you highlight the thought process behind the same? As a follow-up, will you look to acquire the remaining 49% stake in these brands at a later stage and perhaps acquire or integrate the remaining brands in your portfolio as well?
See, actually, this Clarks brand, these two companies have all the Clarks brands, which includes, you know, Clarks Suites, Clarks Inns, Clarks Exotics. All of them come under the, you know, they're kind of run in the different brands, but it is very much part of these two companies. I think that's something which is already part of the transaction.
Over time, the whole idea is that we sort of migrate them to a sort of a brand architecture, which is reflective of the positioning of the hotels, which is what we said 85% to 90% should be in the mid-scale category and should get to a Ginger stage. The rest, depending on the brand, could be a Gateway, could be a SeleQtions. That is to be an exercise which we will do as we move forward. As far as the 49% goes, there is no plan as of now to purchase the 49%. We are, like I said, entering into a strategic partnership. This is not because they are pure financial investors. They're also going to be driving the business, which is very critical for the success of this partnership that we continue with the management and we kind of integrate into this transaction.
Sure. Just a clarification, Ankur, I think earlier on in the call, you mentioned that the enterprise was being valued at around INR 240 crore. Help me reconcile that. If I'm looking at slide number, I think is this slide number eight or nine? Sorry, slide number seven, where you're buying 51% and investing INR 204 crore. Is the enterprise value INR 400 crore or, you know, just help me reconcile that INR 240 crore number that you were mentioning earlier on in the call. INR 240 crore is the enterprise value. If you look at the maths, it's INR 150 crore of primary, which basically, you know, goes into the company, and the balance is secondary. The money going in the company obviously increases the equity value, right, because you've put enterprise value and cash goes into the business.
If it was a pure secondary transaction, we would have bought the business for INR 240 crore, right? Does that answer the question, Karan?
No, I think that's helpful. I think INR 160 crore going into the company and perhaps INR 90 crore for the balance.
Yeah, 160 is basically sitting there, and that will unlock further value.
Sure. Thirdly, in terms of the Xcelerate 2030 plan where you're targeting a 700 hotels portfolio by 2030, post this acquisition, you'll already be at around 530 hotels, meaning 550. Given this, do you see a meaningful increase in this expected hotel number and the mix of managed and owned hotels by year 2030? As a follow-up, with recent arrangements with Claridges, Clarks, and Bridge, from a more long-term perspective, is acquisition of large branded managed rooms collection a strategy that you will actively pursue, or are you looking to acquire hotels on your own balance sheet as well?
I think all routes are open because, you know, we've done, I think the good thing is that we have the balance sheet flexibility to deploy it as and when opportunities come up. An opportunity that makes sense. It's not about adding rooms. It's about, you know, like Mr. Chhatwal referred to in the beginning of the call, it's about mid-scale leadership. It's about brand amplification. It's about, you know, synergies which we can exploit. I think it's very case to case, and, you know, we continue to look at opportunities. The good thing, I think, as Shaleen referred to in the beginning, is that this is, in a way, I would say, a beginning of the inorganic journey, which I think can be very incremental to what we have been doing.
We've talked about this optionality earlier, and I think this is a signal saying that we will now sort of take the first step in that direction.
Sure. This is very useful. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll take that as the last question. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Puneet Chhatwal for closing comments.
Thank you, everyone, for joining the call. We look forward to our next interaction post the Q2 results. Those who have any further questions can contact us offline. We'll be happy to answer whatever queries you might have. Have a wonderful evening, everyone, and looking forward to speaking to you all soon.
Yeah, thank you very much.
Thank you. On behalf of The Indian Hotels Company Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.