NEW YORK CITY—The legendary Plaza Hotel may soon be up for sale…again. Once owned by equally storied magnates, including Conrad Hilton and headline-making presidential candidate Donald Trump, the property's current ownership has been embroiled in a five-year, international legal tussle that may soon crescendo.
The Sahara Group, an India-based firm and the hotel's majority owner now has to convince India's Supreme Court it will pay off the $6 billion regulators say it owes, according to the Wall Street Journal. Failing that, the Indian government says it could seize the iconic property and sell it to the highest bidder.
At the center of the tussle for the Plaza is Subrata Roy, one of India's flashiest businessmen. The founder and public face of Sahara has been in an Indian jail for over a year on contempt charges, with bail set for $1.6 billion—an Indian record.
The nation's Supreme Court in March 2014 convicted him of failing to pay to regulators $4 billion of allegedly illegal debt issued to small investors. A Sahara attorney says Roy and the company deny the government allegations and claim they already paid off most of the debts.
According to people familiar with his dealings, as told to the Journal, Roy spends long periods in an air-conditioned conference room negotiating with potential buyers. The court has allowed him the use of videoconferencing equipment, Internet and phone access, a desktop, a laptop and printers, as well as a stenographer and two assistants to conduct his business, a Sahara lawyer reports. Sahara is bearing the cost of these special privileges, the attorney notes.
In a January meeting, Roy told a visitor he would sell Manhattan's famed Plaza Hotel and two other storied hotels in New York and London for $2 billion, according to witnesses.
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Rayna Katz
Rayna Katz is a seasoned business journalist whose extensive experience includes coverage of the lodging sector, travel and the culinary space. She was most recently content director for a business-to-business publisher, overseeing four publications. While at Meeting News, a travel trade publication, she received a Best Reporting award for a story on meeting cancellations in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.
