Business

Country Club on expansion mode

CHENNAI: Country Club India Ltd. (CCIL), a leading leisure and infrastructure company with a chain of family clubs, is expanding in a big way by acquiring new properties and existing clubs.

Addressing presspersons here on Saturday, Rajeev Reddy, Chairman, said the company had spent nearly Rs. 100 crore for buying properties in Chennai, Pune, Delhi, Kochi, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Vadodara and Surat in the past few months, as a part of its acquisition plans.

In Chennai it has acquired a new resort property through its associate company Aquarian Realtors Pvt. Ltd. at a cost of Rs. 16 crore, Mr. Rajeev Reddy said.

At present CCIL was operating 200 properties across the country with 40 clubs on its own and the balance through franchisees.

To fund the expansion plans the company had successfully completed the issue of GDRs (global depository receipts) for $125 million with the underlying shares priced at Rs. 770 per share of Rs. 10 each.

Global investment institutions such as Fidelity Investment and Goldman Sachs had participated in the equity capital, Mr. Reddy said. CIIL has now made its foray into luxury clubbing under its brand Country Club Kool and the clubs in Ahmedabad and Bangalore will be developed as Country Club Kool property at a cost of Rs. 60 crore.

Mr. Reddy said CIIL’s entry into medical tourism received good response. It had launched a project in association with Kairali Group and had lined up more such projects. The company’s leisure infrastructure project ‘Country Club Coconut Grove’ in more than 100 acres has come up near Tumkur (Bangalore).

The latest offering of CCIL is ‘Country Condos’ giving members the options of owning condominium in country clubs leisure infrastructure projects and allowing them to rent it out with Country Club on a revenue or profit sharing basis. County Club has 1.75 lakh members including 650 corporate members, prominent among them being Microsoft, Satyam Computers, IBM and Larsen & Toubro.

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