The Leela logo and words “Schloss Bangalore Limited” are seen in this illustration taken May 20, 2025. REUTERS
June 2 (Reuters) – Shares of Schloss Bangalore owner of luxury hotel chain “The Leela”, debuted 6.7% lower on Monday, valuing the company at 137.97 billion rupees ($1.62 billion).
The stock listed at 406 rupees on India’s National Stock Exchange, compared to its issue price of 435 rupees. It was last down at 428 rupees.
Brookfield Asset Management owned Schloss, whose$409 million IPO was the second-largest in India this year after Hexaware Technologies’ $1 billion offering, had targeted a valuation of about $1.7 billion. The issue was oversubscribed nearly five times last week.
Schloss was expected to list weakly on concerns of rich valuation, debt and lower room occupancy rates than peers.
Its room occupancy was at roughly 70% for fiscal 2025, its prospectus showed. Occupancy levels for rivals Indian Hotels Company Ltd and EIH Associated Hotels were 78% and 79% respectively, company statements show.
“Taj”-owner Indian Hotels is valued at $12.76 billion while “Oberoi”-parent is valued at $273.3 million.
So far this year, IHCL and EIH Associated Hotels are down 12% and 5% respectively, compared to a 4% gain in blue-chip Nifty 50 index On the day, the benchmark was down 0.6%.
Schloss had initially filed for IPO last year to trim down its debt levels, which at the end of fiscal year 2025 stood at 25.68 billion rupees – a 32% decline on-year.
In comparison, liabilities at the end of the fiscal year 2025 at Indian Hotels and EIH Associated Hotels stood at 19.04 billion rupees and 1.10 billion rupees respectively.
“This lower interest is justified given investor concerns around the IPO’s valuation, the company’s significant debt burden even after recent reductions, and operational challenges such as occupancy rates lagging behind industry averages,” Prashanth Tapse, senior vice president (research) at Mehta Equities said.
Institutional buyers bid for more than seven times the shares allotted for them in Schloss, while retail investors bid for just 83%.
Reporting by Hritam Mukherjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee