Believed to be the country's oldest hotel, the state-owned Great Eastern Hotel may regain its past glory as nine domestic and international companies have evinced interest in taking it over.
Among those pitching for the hotel are ITC Ltd, The Park Hotels, Intercontinental South West Asia and Bharat Hotels. All have submitted proposals to take over the hotel, which has been in business since 1840.
The state government is upbeat about the development. Nirupam Sen, minister in charge for industrial reconstruction and public enterprise, said on Wednesday that the state government was hopeful of wrapping up a deal within this financial year.
Others in the fray are the Claridges Hotel group, Ramuk AB (a Scandinavian company), Unitech Group (has a partnership with Radisson), Kenilworth and the Sinclairs Hotels.
Besides, three companies that are not in the hospitality sector -- Ruia Kotex (which bought Jessop), MP Glychem and Finolice Group -- have bid for the property.
"The assets of the hotel will be transferred to a new company and the majority stake will be sold to the selected player. How much stake will be offered is to be decided later," Sunil Mitra, principal secretary, public enterprise department, government of West Bengal, told Business Standard.
The development is significant for the fact that earlier attempts to sell the hotel remained inconclusive. The state government's first attempt -- in 1995 -- to form a joint venture for running the hotel was a failure.
That was because an MoU signed with the Accor Asia Pacific group, which had shown keen interest in the Great Eastern Hotel, had to be scrapped following an anti-privatisation agitation by hotel employees.
The sale process is being managed by a wing of PricewaterhouseCoopers along with another consulting firm and a real estate company.
The Great Eastern Hotel, located in central Kolkata's commercial hub, could be an attractive buy. It remains to be seen how the buyer and the seller negotiate the 400-odd highly-unionised employees of the hotel.
It is believed that the state government has an assurance from the DFID of the UK in working out a social-safety package for the workers.