New Plaza owner also buys Dream Downtown

Along with buying one of the more iconic U.S hotels in the Plaza hotel, Sahara Group, reportedly, has also acquired one of the newer more hip hotels in New York: Dream Downtown. The total amount shelled out by the Indian-based group for the hotels totaled a whopping $800 million.

As Hotel Management reported yesterday, Sahara completed its 75-percent purchase of the Plaza for $570 million. The stake includes the entire 60 percent held by Elad Properties for $400 million, and 15 percent from Kingdom Holdings, controlled by Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, for $170 million. The group then also paid another $220 million for Dream Downtown, which it bought from New York hotelier Vikram Chatwal.

The 315-room hotel is located on the cusp of the Meatpacking District and is also near the West Village. Both the Plaza and the Dream will continue to be operated by their current managers. In addition to these two acquisitions, First Post reports that Subrata Roy-led Sahara is still looking to buy even more New York hotels to spruce up its holdings.

The acquisitions seem to be coming at a rather odd time, as The Economic Times reports. Sahara's agreement to purchase the two hotels comes on the back of a Supreme Court order directing it to refund more than $3 billion worth of bonds raised by selling optionally fully convertible debenture. Apart from the two New York hotels and Grosvenor House in London, which itacquired in 2010, Subrata Roy owns Sahara Star, a 223-room hotel near the Mumbai domestic airport.