The sale of the Plaza Hotel has been a soap opera for years now; one without a definitive ending. Now, if all goes well, it could finally see closure.
As reported earlier this month, and now being reported by The New York Post, an unidentified Saudi royal family member and London-based 3 Associates are in talks with India’s Sahara Group to buy the property for $352 million.
In addition to the Plaza, the consortium could also buy London’s Grosvenor House for $882 million and New York’s Dream Downtown Hotel for $235 million, also both owned by the embattled Sahara Group.
The sale of these assets has been an ongoing international drama going back to the arrest of Sahara Group founder Subrata Roy. Roy was jailed after failing to appear at a contempt hearing in a long-running legal battle between his group and the Indian capital markets regulator.
The three hotels were put on the market more than two years ago to raise funds for Roy's £1 billion bail, and several potential buyers for the individual assets or all three properties have come and gone since then.
The Saudi royal family member and 3 Associates have tapped Knight Frank to oversee the bid and are reportedly preparing a formal offer through the Supreme Court in India, which is administrating the sale of Sahara assets to repay investors.