The promoters of luxury hotels group Leela will pump in 150 crore into the company through a preferential allotment, as part of its corporate debt-restructuring package. The Nair family, which holds 57% of the company, Hotel Leelaventure, at present, will thereby increase its shareholding to 63% after the CDRprocess.

"The CDR cell will meet at the end of April where the restructuring is expected to be approved. The promoters are required to bring in a certain percentage of the CDR package," said a source in the company, who did not wish to be named. 

State Bank of India, which has close to 900 crore of exposure to the company, is the referring bank and has taken the proposal to the CDR cell along with other banks. Leela has an accumulated debt of over 4,000 crore, that it has been trying to reduce.

The hotel industry is expecting the government to grant infrastructure status soon, which will allow hotels to get longer terms loans of up to 15 years. The managing director of the company, Vivek Nair, had earlier told ET that anticipating this move it had approached SBI to replace its existing rupee term loans with 15-year loans. The bank, though, told the company that it would need to apply for CDR as the RBI does not allow banks to replace existing term loans with longer duration loans.

The promoters of the company will raise the 150 crore through Leela Lace Holdings, which runs IT parks and commercial office buildings in Kochi, Trivandrum, Bangalore and Mumbai. "These buildings generate rental income for the promoters which will be used for the preferential allotment," said the source.

The company, which has hotels in Mumbai, New Delhi, Gurgaon, Bangalore, Kovalam and Goa, had been looking at selling some of its assets to reduce its debt of over 4,000 crore.

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