Mahindra Holidays & Resorts India Ltd, India's largest vacation ownership company, has bought Finland-based spa and leisure resort Saimaa Gardens Arena Oy through its overseas subsidiary Holiday Club Resorts Oy (HCR).
In a stock exchange filing, Mahindra Holidays said HCR already held a 24 per cent stake in Saimaa and has now fully acquired the Finnish company. This makes Saimaa a step-down subsidiary of Mahindra Holidays.
Mahindra Holidays holds a majority stake in HCR. It had initially bought an 18.8 per cent stake in HCR in 2014 with the right to increase its holding over two years. It later hiked its stake to 23.3 per cent and last September raised it further to 83.2 per cent. It had announced then that it will make a fresh investment of €28 million ($31.4 million or Rs 208 crore) to increase its holding in HCR to 86.38 per cent. HCR’s management and Finland-based Fennia Group also hold a stake in the company.
Established in 1986, HCR is among the leading vacation ownership companies in Europe and has 30 resorts. Of these, 22 are located in Finland including six spa hotels resorts, two in Sweden, six in Spain, five in Gran Canaria. In FY14 it had revenue of €123 million.
Mumbai-based Mahindra Holidays is part of the diversified Mahindra Group and runs hotels and resorts under the Club Mahindra brand. The company offers family holidays, primarily through vacation ownership memberships. As on March 31, 2015, it had 1.83 lakh vacation ownership members.
It competes with the likes of Sterling Holiday Resorts, which is now under Fairfax-controlled Thomas Cook.
