Bharti Group chairman Sunil Mittal, the billionaire who controls India’s biggest mobile-phone operator, is looking to pump more than US$1 billion into a hotel chain founded by his son-in-law in London, people with knowledge of the matter said.
The money from Mittal would fund acquisitions by Sharan Pasricha’s Ennismore, a developer that owns the Gleneagles resort and Hoxton hotel chain, which is expanding in the US and Europe, said the people, who asked not to be identified, as the matter is private.
The injection would come from a Bharti unit that handles Mittal’s family wealth and would help Pasricha acquire and convert properties in trendy urban areas in US and European cities into hotels aimed at younger travelers.
Hoxton, known for its casual atmosphere and affordable rates, operates two hotels in the London neighborhoods of Shoreditch and Holborn, and one each in Amsterdam and Paris. The brand has 667 rooms across the three cities.
Ennismore said in an e-mail that it partners with Bharti Global, which makes investments for the Mittal family, and declined to comment further.
Pasricha, who is married to Mittal’s daughter Eiesha, ran a media startup, then a leather-goods factory and a private equity investment firm before getting into the hotel business.
Pasricha acquired the first Hoxton in Shoreditch, an East London neighborhood known for street art. The second in Holborn in 2014 was followed by a branch in Amsterdam in 2015 and in Paris last year.
Hoxton is developing hotels in New York City’s hip neighborhood of Williamsburg, Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon, with plans to start opening some of them this year, its Web site said.
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