ITC moves NCLT against Leelaventure

Kolkata: Kolkata-headquartered diversified conglomerate ITC Ltd has moved the NCLT against Hotel Leelaventure, alleging ‘oppression and mismanagement’, according to a regulatory filing by Hotel Leela-venture on Tuesday. The Mumbai bench of the National Company Law Tribunal posted the matter for hearing on Wednesday.

Along with the petition, ITC has also filed two application seeking waiver of the requirement of minimum threshold of 10 per cent shareholding, Hotel Leelaventure mentioned in its filing before the regulator. ITC now holds a 7.92 per cent stake in Hotel Leelaventure.

Interestingly, ITC had checked in at Leela during the third quarter of 2008-09 with a 3 per cent stake. In 2010, it had taken over Russell Credit’s stake in the hospitality major and within the next two months picked up an additional 1.54 per cent stake through its wholly owned investment subsidiary Russell Credit, taking the consolidated holding in the Bengaluru-based hotel chain to 10 per cent.

Leela Group was never comfortable with ITC increasing its stake in the chain. The then chairman of Leela Group C P Krishnan Nair had, at one point, said he would prefer partnering Mukesh Ambani if there were hostile bids from ITC.