The minority owners of the Plaza Hotel, Ashkenazy Acquisition and Saudi Prince Al Waleed bin Talal's Kingdom Holding, have countered two investors’ plan to buy out majority owner Subrata Roy.
They have exercised a right of first refusal to match a $600 million offer for New York’s Plaza Hotel, in a move that would void another Shahal Khan and Kamran Hakim’s agreement to buy the property, according to Bloomberg.
Ben Ashkenazy’s Ashkenazy Acquisition Corporation and Saudi Prince Al Waleed bin Talal, as the building’s minority owners, have the right of first refusal. They have since exercised that right, the New York Post reported, by offering the same $600 million sum. Roy’s Sahara Group did not comment on the deal.
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They now have 45 days to close the deal.
Sahara has tried to sell it's stake in the hotel in the last few years. In August 2016, Sahara dismissed a US $1.3 billion (AED 4.8 billion) Saudi-UK offer for three hotels- London’s Grosvenor House Hotel, a majority stake in New York’s Plaza and Dream Downtown hotels.
Roy was sentenced to jail for failing to pay regulators by India's Supreme Court in 2014. He spent two years in a New Delhi jail on contempt charges.
Previous owners of the 110-year old property include hotelier Conrad Hilton and Donald Trump.
Westin Hotels sold the Plaza Hotel to US President Donald Trump in 1988 for $390 million, who was forced by his lenders at the brink of bankruptcy to sell to Prince al-Waleed in 1995 for $325 million. Fairmont Hotels has been the operator of the property since.