India's Sahara group chairman Subrata Roy has struck a deal to mortgage London’s Grosvenor House Hotel and and New York’s Plaza hotel. The deals were struck in a Delhi jail between India’s most controversial billionaire and a consortium which includes an American rap star.
Under the deal, the consortium, said to include Pras Michel, the Grammy-winning Fugees rapper, will pay £1.3 billion ($2 billion) for the Grosvenor and New York’s celebrated Plaza and Dream hotels to allow Indian tycoon Subrata Roy to buy himself out of jail.
Between 2010 and 2012, Roy bought the Grosvenor House Hotel on Park Lane for £470 million and New York’s Plaza Hotel for £375 million. However, Roy was jailed in March last year for contempt of court after he failed to return over 200 billion rupees (£2.1 billion) with interest to investors who were sold illegal bonds. The court set one of the highest bails on record, at more than £1 billion, but allowed Roy to negotiate the mortgage or sale of his properties in order to fund a deal.
