Rajiv Sawhney, MD and CEO of Mahindra Holidays & Resorts India Ltd—the largest vacation ownership company in the country and part of $15.9 billion Mahindra Group—has stepped down, the company announced in the stock exchange on Friday. According to the company, Sawhney resigned due to personal reasons.
“Rajiv Sawhney, managing director and CEO of the company, has tendered his resignation from the services of the company to take effect from the close of working hours on March 31, 2014 due to personal reasons,” the company announced in the stock exchange. The decision to accept the resignation was taken at the board meeting held on January 3, 2014.
The company, in the latter half of 2013, divested stake in two Austrian companies and acquired 49 per cent stake in Dubai-based Arabian Dream Hotel Apartments. Further, the company has been looking to expand and increase its presence in Sri Lanka and Malaysia.
Mahindra Holidays, which runs hotels and resorts under the Club Mahindra brand, has room inventory of 2,480 rooms among 44 resorts in India and overseas.
Even as the hotel industry has been going through a difficult time due to oversupply of rooms in certain regions and a big demand-supply gap in others, private equity investors have been looking at this space closely. The companies which got funding earlier include Samhi Hotels, which raised $75 million from Equity International and $25 million from GTI Capital, Berggruen Hotels raising $100 million from Berggruen Holdings and Apeejay Surrendra Park raising $55 million from Credit Suisse.
(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)
