Will Nair's daughters take charge of Leela's massive debt?

Amruda, Aishwarya and Samyukta Nair, the grand-daughters of Captain Chittarath Poovakkatt Krishnan Nair, are all set to take over the reins of one of India’s luxury hotels - Hotel Leelaventure as they have joined the family business at a time when the company is going through a tough phase, reported the Economic Times.

Between the age group of 26 and 29, the trio can bring a wide range of experience between them and have found roles that seem to interest them - Samyukta Nair,youngest of them, and who was not keen on joining the company, is involved with the interior designs of all group hotels.

Aishwarya is handling the food & beverages department while Amruda, a Cornell alumni, seems to have found her forte in finance as she heads the Corporate Asset Management of the company.

But seriously, these three have a lot of work to do if they want to be taken seriously.

Firstly, Hotel Leela is sitting on a huge debt of Rs 4,295 crore. Its financial performance for the nine months ended December has been a disaster as the company posted its highest ever loss of Rs 191 crore.

Second, with its foreign currency convertible bonds (FCCBs) inching closer, a lot of investors will be watching this development closely. According to a report by Kotak Securities, the company’s foreign currency convertible bonds of $100 million are due for conversion by April 2012.

This could also be one of the reasons why the company sold off its Kovalam property for Rs 500 crore last year. But this may not be enough keeping in mind its humongous debt.

And third, the company has an on-going potential threat from its competitor - ITC. The company’s chairman, YC Deveshwar told CNBC TV-18 that he may increase his company’ stake in Leela if the price is attractive.

Clearly their hands are full for now. But we’l just have to wait and watch to see whether Nair’s daughters can turn the tide around for Leela.