Indian Hotels Company Limited, the parent company of Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces, will acquire 51% of the operations of two Indian hotel firms — ANK Hotels and Pride Hospitality — from fellow Indian hotel firm The Clarks Hotels & Resorts.
The acquisition price is 2.04 billion Indian rupees ($23.28 million), according to Indian newspaper Financial Express.
IHCL has invested 1.1 billion Indian rupees in ANK, which has 67 hotels in operation and 44 in its pipeline; and 940 million Indian rupees in Pride, which has 13 hotels in operation and 11 in its pipeline.
Ankur Dalwani, IHCL’s executive vice president and chief financial officer, said in a statement funding will be through “internal accruals given our strong cash flows. The primary investment in the companies will be used for unlocking value in the existing assets and for fueling future growth opportunities.”
ANK operates its hotels under brands Clarks Inn, Clarks Inn Premier and Clarks Inn Suites. Pride operates under the Clarks Collection, Clarks Resort and Clarks Safari brands. All the ANK and Pride hotels are in the midscale segment. This deal will add 135 operating and pipeline hotels to IHCL’s portfolio that now stands at more than 500, and it doubles IHCL's midscale portfolio to more than 240 hotels.
IHCL also signed a distribution and marketing agreement with Jaipur-based Brij Hospitality to add a further portfolio of 11 operating hotels, all under the Brij boutique brand and all in India.
ANK has a presence in Sri Lanka, and Brij is due to open its first hotel outside of India soon, in Pokhara, Nepal.
Puneet Chhatwal, IHCL’s managing director and CEO, said in a news release announcing the deals that they underline the sustained momentum of India’s hotels and hospitality sector over the past three years.
The deals, he added, are “reflective of the country’s growing economic prominence and rising discretionary spends. The outlook for the sector remains buoyant as demand outpaces supply, and India continues to be an underserved hospitality market especially in the midmarket segment. Our partnership with ANK, Pride and Brij Hospitality is a multi-pronged approach addressing India’s heterogenous market landscape.”
IHCL is part of Tata Group, India's largest multinational business conglomerate whose divisions include hotels, car manufacturing, aerospace and more. The company plans to grow its hotels portfolio to more than 700 properties by 2030. Its hotel brands include Claridge Collections, Ginger, SeleQtions and Vivanta, and in its latest quarterly earnings results published on June 30, 2025, IHCL said it had a portfolio of 392 hotels in operation and 143 in development.
IHCL's moves
In July, Tata Sons, the holding company for Tata Group, founded a hotel-ownership platform to spur growth in Indian Hotels Company. Also that month, IHCL signed a partnership deal with Kolkata-based hotel owner and developer Ambuja Neotia Group to open 15 hotels over the next five years, mostly under the Taj brand umbrella.
In January, IHCL completed its majority acquisition in Tree of Life Resorts & Hotels for approximately 180 million Indian rupees. Tree of Life has 17 hotels, all in India.
IHCL trades on the Stock Exchange of India. When the bourse closed on Aug. 12, IHCL’s shares had increased in value by 1.63% compared with the close on Aug. 11.