Indian Hotels emerges as the sole bidder at Taj Mansingh auction

Tata Group-controlled Indian Hotels Company is said to have emerged as the sole bidder for the Taj Mansingh property put on the block by the New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC).

This is despite NDMC easing the eligibility criteria earlier yhis year that allowed most 5-star hotel operators to make a bid. NDMC will now likely push for new dates for a fresh round of auctions. Two other hotels Connaught and Hotel Asian International also went under the hammer.

The tender rules said the bid process would be annulled in case there were less than three bidders, said a report in Business Standard. Rival hotel giant ITC and luxury hospitality brand Oberoi where some of the other two names that had cropped up in the pre-bid period.

Representatives of hotel companies said they were not enthused with the financial terms and certain conditions of the tender. In spite of a relaxation in certain conditions in the second tender floated by the NDMC in April, a number of hotel companies failed to qualify. Some said the responses to queries raised by prospective bidders in a pre-bid meeting were not satisfactorily answered, said the report.

Indian Hotels had signed a lease agreement with the NDMC in 1976 and the 292-room hotel was inaugurated two years later. In 2011, the 33-year-old lease ended. When NDMC decided to auction the property, Indian Hotels challenged the decision in the Delhi High Court. After several lease extensions, the Supreme Court approved the auction last April.