Hotel Leelaventure changes name to HLV Ltd

Hotel Leelaventure Ltd on Friday said its name has been changed to HLV Ltd with effect from December 27, 2019.

"The name of the company has been changed from "Hotel Leelaventure Limited" to "HLV Limited" with effect from 27 December 2019," it said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange.

The change of name of the company will come into effect from 8 January, 2020, it said.

Earlier in 22 October 2019, Hotel Leelaventure's board had approved the proposed change in name of the company to 'HLV Ltd' or some other suitable name, if it was not available.

As part of the Brookfield transaction, the word "Leela" would not be a part of the company's name, it had said in an exchange filing.

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The Mumbai-based hotel chain had announced in October last year that it had sold its hotel properties and operations to Canada-based Brookfield Asset Management Inc for Rs 3,950 crore. The deal, which took more than a year to come to fruition, includes the sale of hotel properties in Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Udaipur and Agra. The deal excludes its fifth property, located in Mumbai.

The company will continue to own and operate the hotel in Mumbai under the Leela brand, licensed to it by Brookfield. It will also continue to own the land in Hyderabad and its share of apartments under the joint development project of residential apartments with Prestige Developers in Bengaluru, adjoining The Leela Palace Hotel.

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The company used the entire proceeds from the deal to repay its debt to the banks and financial institutions as part of a one-time settlement. As per some estimates, HLVL had an outstanding debt of over Rs 3,000 crore.

Meanwhile, shares of Hotel Leelaventure closed Friday's trade at Rs 5.91 apiece, down 0.84 per cent, on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

By Chitranjan Kumar