Through relentless focus on cost reduction, re-structuring and margin expansion, Indian Hotels Company Ltd. (IHCL) has cut down its net debt from over ₹5,000 crore in FY16 to ₹1,900 crore in FY20 and has remained profitable for the last eight consecutive quarters.

The company is working to further reduce debt and monetise non-core assets, a top executive said.

Speaking on the occasion of the company’s third Capital Markets Day, which he started soon after taking over little more than two years ago, Puneet Chhatwal, managing director & CEO, IHCL, said ëmphasis on debt reduction would continue.

“We have cleared some dollar loans and have refinances loans worth ₹750 crore at better terms.”

Soon after joining the company in late 2017, Mr. Chhatwal, who came with considerable international exposure, unveiled a five year vision for IHCL — called Aspiration 2022 — for turnaround of the company, which was making loss for several years. He said so far the company had achieved the targets and the performance had been satisfactory.

“This year continues the transformation of IHCL from a hotel company to a multi-brand hospitality ecosystem player. We have executed on our Aspiration 2022 vision and driven strong operational performance with significant improvement across all key financial metrics like profitability, cash-flows, EBITDA margins and debt ratios in the current fiscal.”

He said the company’s decision to re-imagine the brandscape had created sustainable value proposition for each brand. Now, IHCL has brands like Taj, SeleQtions,Vivanta, Ginger, Expressions and TajSATs.

Stating that the company signed 50 new hotels in the last two years, Mr. Chhatwal said this growth momentum helped the company to reach a portfolio milestone of 200 hotels, of which 158 are operational and the remaining 42 hotels with 6,000 rooms were under development.

“With 200 hotels we will have an inventory of 25,000 rooms in over 100 locations. Now, we are opening one hotel per month and our aim is to open more than one hotel every month in FY21. We will continue to focus on capturing emerging opportunities across the hospitality industry landscape, thereby creating significant value for all our stakeholders,” he said.

He said the company would now grow its footprint through management contracts. Now, 43% of the hotels are run under management contracts, while this was 32% two years ago. He said the company would focus on Food & Beverages and expanding the scope of TajSATs to maximise revenue.

On the Sea Rock hotel issue at Bandstand, he said the company had reached an agreement to increase its stake to 100% from 85% currently. He said it would take 12 to 18 months’ time to get any clarity on this issue.

IHCL also announced to set up a 371-room Ginger Hotel near the airport with an investment of ₹140 crore without land cost. This flagship hotel called Ginger Santacruz will commence operations from April 2022.

The company also announced that Taj Hotel & Convention Centre, in Goa will open on March 1, 2020. The integrated hotel and conference facility co-located with Cidade de Goa with over 500 rooms and 60,000 sq ft of conference space will be the biggest convention venue in the state.