Indian business tycoon Subrata Roy, seeking to raise US$1.6 billion to win release from jail, has “interested” potential buyers of his iconic foreign properties, icluding New York’s Plaza Hotel, a company official said on Saturday.
The Indian Supreme Court on Friday gave the founder of India’s Sahara media-to-finance business empire “10 working days” to use a special conference room at New Delhi’s sprawling Tihar Jail complex “to negotiate sale of three foreign properties.”
Up for grabs are two famous hotels — New York’s Plaza Hotel and Grosvenor House hotel in London — along with the Dream Downtown in New York, that Roy purchased to accumulate a luxury accommodation portfolio.
“There are people interested in the properties, we can’t say more,” the Sahara India Pariwar official told reporters on condition of anonymity. “We expect it [the conference room] to start getting the equipment in by Tuesday.”
In March the Indian Supreme Court jailed Roy after he missed a court appearance in a long-running row with security regulators.
Roy needs to raise 100 billion rupees (US$1.6 billion) bail set by the court to obtain his freedom. Indian media outlets reported that Indian pharmaceutical billionaire Cyrus Poonawalla and US-based Madison Capital Holdings might be interested in the properties.
The Supreme Court bench headed by Justice T.S. Thakur allowed Roy and two jailed company directors three secretaries, video-conferencing and computers to facilitate sale negotiations.
The three men are to sleep at the conference facilities and be allowed to work from 6am until 8pm to allow for international time differences.
Sahara raised 200 billion rupees (US$3.2 billion) from millions of small savers through an illegal bond scheme. Regulators ordered the group to pay the money back — even though the Supreme Court said there were “serious doubts about the existence” of the investors, fueling long-running allegations of money laundering.
Sahara has always denied the allegations and insisted the company was only helping poor, mainly rural investors who are hard to locate.
Roy acquired a 75 percent stake in New York’s Plaza Hotel in 2012. The three hotels are valued at a total of about US$1.6 billion, according to a valuation cited by the Indian Supreme Court.
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