ITC unveils Kohenur in Hyderabad

ITC has launched its 12th luxury hotel called ITC Kohenur in Hyderabad, named after the famous diamond believed to have been mined from Golconda, less than 10 kms from the IT hub.

The innovatively designed building was launched by K T Rama Rao, Minister of Information Technology, Municipal Administration and Urban Development, Government of Telangana on Monday. The top brass of the tobacco giant turned FMCG major, led by its chairman Y C Deveshwar, managing director Sanjiv Puri and executive director Nakul Anand, were present along with S Sivakumar, group head, agri and IT businesses and Sanjay Singh, group head, packaging and printing business and paper and speciality paperboards division.

Kohenur has been built with an investment of around Rs 775 crore and is equipped with 271 high technology - enabled rooms, suites and service apartments apart from six signature restaurants.

Talking about the move, Deveshwar said, ITC which was once a cigarette company has today become a multi-business organisation - paperboards, packaging, agri-business, food processing and branded foods business, in personal care and in information technology apart from hotel business. "Today 80 per cent of our operating assets of ITC today are engaged in non-cigarette business and 90 per cent of the human resource of ITC is engaged in non-cigarette business."

The state minister K T Rama Rao, however, hailing ITC and its investments in the new state of Telangana, urged the company to help in the revival of an ailing paper mill of BILT in the Jayashankar Bhupalpally District that has been carved out of erstwhile Warangal district in Telangana.

Deveshwar, who has stepped aside from the executive role and is today the non-executive chairman of the company, pointed the minister to Sanjiv Puri and said, "We have a young and dynamic managing director and he has taken upon himself to take ITC forward with a plan of Rs 25,000 crore investment in the next five years and your suggestion will be seriously looked at by him and if you offer us enough incentives there is no reason why we cannot."

Later at a press conference, Puri said the Rs 25,000 crore investment plan was across several product lines, as the food business is in many product areas and spaced out. For instance, in hotels if it is ITC Kohenur this year, then it will be ITC Royal Bengal next year. In foods, next near it would be Hyderabad and Trichy.

For the company, he said, today, 59 per cent of revenues are from non-tobacco verticals, which means 41 per cent from cigarettes. But the non-cigarette segments, Puri said, are growing at a faster rate as there is lot of room to grow. "Post GST, problems far less than expected and it has stabilised reasonably well now," he said.

Talking about the foray into healthcare, he said, in a year's time, there will be clearer perspective on the way ahead.

Apart from the luxury hotel, ITC is also investing in a state-of-the-art Integrated Consumer Goods Manufacturing and Logistics facility in Medak, near Hyderabad, where the first phase would be ready for commissioning next year, when such unit is also to take shape in Trichy.