Kolkata/Mumbai: Tata Group chairman Cyrus Mistry on Wednesday indicated that Tata Global Beverages might sell its loss-making Chinese subsidiary. “For China, we are exploring different options which could be restructuring or a sale,” Mistry said at TGBL’s annual shareholder meet in Kolkata on Wednesday.
The Chinese subsidiary of TGBL called Zhejiang Tata Tea Extraction Company, posted a loss of over Rs 15 crore in the last fiscal. It has accumulated losses of over Rs 100 crore, according to the balance sheet. TGBL holds 81% in the company. “We continue to have those challenges and will take a call on the business there in the coming year. It is significantly a B2B business over there. It’s not a consumer business. That’s not the reason that business is getting impacted. The reason is more from a production perspective,” he added.
On Tuesday in Mumbai, Mistry told shareholders of Indian Hotels Company (IHCL) that new-age hotel aggregators like Oyo Rooms are posing a threat to traditional players like Taj. Replying to an IHCL investor’s query with regard to online hotel aggregators disrupting the market and challenging the company’s Ginger brand, Mistry said that “we have to keep an eye on them” (players like Oyo Rooms). “They have a different business model and I hope they expand the market and not compete with the market,” Mistry said at IHCL’s 115th annual general meeting.
These startups are forcing IHCL, the owner of the Taj chain, to review Ginger’s operations. “We are re-looking at the entire portfolio of Ginger,” Mistry said.
Oyo Rooms, founded in 2012 by college dropout Ritesh Agarwal, now 22, has 68,300 rooms in its network, much more than the 2003-launched Ginger which has 3,306 rooms. Besides Oyo Rooms, there are over a dozen technology-enabled lodging players operating in the country’s budget hospitality segment offering rooms in the Rs 1,000-3,000 price range.
