Lalit may go asset light, explores IPO

The Lalit Suri Hospitality Group wants to train personnel at its hospitality school in Faridabad to take its management contract agenda forward.

“We always wanted our own hospitality school where we wanted enough talent to be able to do management contracts. Once it is up and running in the next two years, we are open to management contracts,” Keshav Suri, executive director, Lalit Suri Hospitality Group, told

Business Standard.

Started in 2013, the Lalit Suri Hospitality School was set up by the group’s charitable trust as a privatepublic partnership with the Haryana government’s department of tourism. It has 200 students.

Asked why the company was keen on owning the assets it operated, Suri said, “We believe in land value and asset value. It is something I learnt from my parents, who wanted to manage what was owned.”

After opening its hotel in London, the company may consider forays into Paris and New York. It is about to exit its Dubai venture because the market there is overcrowded. The company plans to go asset light.

The company, which owns 13 hotels, is contemplating an initial public offering. “We are trying to see the sustainability of the market. There is no urgent need to raise funds,” Suri said.

Suri, who started his career with the renovation of the 200-year-old Great Eastern in Kolkata, said the goods and services tax would benefit the hospitality industry by solving “a lot of service issues” and by containing the brain- drain to Thailand and Dubai.

He said the average room rent in the industry was declining and this needed to be addressed. “In London, they agree that in certain parts of the city the room rent will not go below a certain level,” he added.