BBHL plans Rs 3 cr Hyderabad Kitchen ahead of IPO

Hyderabad, Apr 7 (UNI) Ahead of its planned IPO next month to mop up Rs 30 crore for expansion, Ahmedabad-based Bhagwati Banquets&Hotels Ltd (BBHL) today announced setting up a 5500 sq ft state-of-the-art centralized kitchen here to cater corporate clients, marriage customers, big events and conventions in the city.

In its ''first foray' of out Gujarat, BBHL will invest Rs 3 crore on its ''Hyderabad Kitchen.'' ''Next year we will be ready to be in Bangalore,'' BBHL Chairman and Managing Director Narendra Gurmukhdas Somani told media here.

It has already drawn an ambitious target for the very first year of operation in Hyderabad to achieve a turnover of Rs ten crore and 20 per cent growth thereupon every year. Since December 2005, it has already booked orders from Corporates and other ''high valued'' customers to the extent of Rs two crore, he informed.

There were nearly 3000 caterers in Hyderabad city and about 10,000 in Andhra Pradesh. The size of the catering industry in the twin cities was estimated to be about Rs 500 crore and in the state Rs 1.000 crore annually, which was growing almost at a rate of 40 per cent. In case of corporate catering, a whopping growth rate of 300 per cent was registered.

BBHL, which has a 5-star hotel at Ahmedabad, plans to set up second star hotel at Surat with 500 rooms and about Rs 80 crore investment by 2007. It will put its star hotel in the Pearl city with Rs 120 crore in 2011, the fourth in Bangalore in 2014, and at Mumbai, its sixth star hotel by 2017 after its fifth hotel which will be set up at Lucknow.

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