Country Club one-stop leisure shop now: Siddharth Reddy

Trade

• Watchlist
• Portfolio
• Message
• Set Alert

 

 

Choose Stock Exchange: BSE LIVE NSE LIVE

26 Aug, 2025 12:21

Volume

Todays L/H

More

×

Country Club India has requested its shareholders to grant permission to change its name to Country Club Hospitality and Holidays, which would be the first step towards rebranding itself, said Siddharth Reddy, VC, JMD & CEO of Country Club.Reddy clarified that the rebranding exercise is not to be a likely takeover candidate mainly but to prove that it has evolved from being a plain vanilla club to being a one-stop leisure shop, and has expanded from just one property in 1989 to over 50 properties both overseas and in India combined.Also the promoter holding stands above 73%, which makes it an unlikely takeover candidate, said Reddy.Expansion plans include Saudi, US and South East Asia. The overseas business which was around 1% till 2005 has gone up to 30%, he adds. At present the capex is more or less complete and so, the club has no plans for divesting but would likely look at opportunities were interested investors could come in for smaller expansions, he added.

Below is the transcript of Y Siddharth Reddy's interview with Reema Tendulkar and Ekta Batra on CNBC-TV18.Ekta: Can you tell us what this rebranding process is and are you diversifying into other arenas except for just hotels, which I think was your core operation and any sort of capex lined up for the same?A: The rebranding exercise is first going to start off with the name change for which we have already asked our shareholders for permission to change the name. The company was called Country Club. So we changed the name with the objective of giving clarity on two points, the first- the company has evolved from being a plain vanilla club into also providing holidays, fitness services, exciting events and thereby creating a one stop leisure shop making us the innovators of this model not only in India but in the whole world.Secondly, this company has also expanded from just one property to over 50 properties after acquiring properties in places like Dubai where we own a fabulous 100 room hotel and also exotic locations like Goa, Kerala and Kodaikanal giving us a large property base of about 50 and a net worth of over Rs 1,000 crore. So we believe the name change will be the first step in this branding exercise which addresses both these points effectively.Reema: The word in the market is that the rebranding exercise is also a step in order for the company to be sold. Most people are saying that your company is a likely takeover candidate, is there any truth to those rumours?A: It is apparent to note that the promoter shareholding in this company is 73.8 percent. So a takeover is probably not going to happen but it is also apparent that the company is fundamentally very strong and has a very bright future ahead. If you look at some of the broad numbers for example, the company’s debt equity ratio is about 0.3.

It has the largest member base in the country at over 300,000 member families and obviously I told you about the fact that the group has own about 50 properties and since our growth has been so solid and the fact that we have had a 25-year track record, takeover will not be an option but however we have been extremely lucky to have extremely high investors interest and whom we are in touch with and if anything happens on that front, obviously we will let our shareholders as well as stock exchanges and obviously the media know.Ekta: Would that interest the company at least?A: No.Ekta: Can you give us a sense in terms of what your capex is looking like at least for the next one year and what other geographies would you possibly be looking to expand? You spoke about Dubai, would that be on the cards to possibly diversify into other geographies as well?A: In 2005, our overseas business was about 1 percent of our total business. That 1 percent has increased to about 30 percent of our total business. So it gives us extremely good geographic diversification. Having said that, in terms of Dubai we have already bought our property there in the heart of the Dubai and that has been a sphere head of our international growth and our main advantage is the fact that most of our capital expenditure is complete. So there will be limited capital expenditure in the future. Our main focus right now is going to be working on increasing our margins and also consolidating and reducing our debt.Reema: Would the promoters be looking at diluting stake and infusing more money into the company via these investors interest in order to aide your growth plans?A: Definitely. I don’t know whether we would be interested in divesting but I think definitely we would look at opportunities where investors can comment but at this point even though that is the case, we don’t require too much cash and even if we do, it will be a very small amount.more to come