Green Park bounty: Kin slug it out

[Thulasivenkat]

HYDERABAD: There's trouble brewing at Hotel Green Park. Rumours are rife about a management change. Hotel employees — at least a section — don't seem to be comfortable about the talk of change and are moving around with black badges on their arms. Needless to add that the guests aren't amused.



Late last week, MD Murali Reddy addressed the employees saying that "don't worry, I am going nowhere". But a section of employees continue to be restive.



And the management change being speculated is all in the family: The result of a tiff between a father-in-law and a son-in-law. Murali, the son-in-law, is under threat of losing control over Diana Hotels Ltd, which owns Green Park, to his brother-in-law G V Prasad, who is also vice-chairman of Dr Reddy's Lab, and Prasad's brother-in-law Satish Reddy, MD of Dr Reddy's Lab and son of Anji Reddy.



Diana Hotels besides Hyderabad's Green Park also runs hotels in Vizag and Chennai. Murali Reddy owns 38 per cent of the equity holding of Diana Hotels, which is also the equity owned by his father-in-law G H Reddy — G V Prasad's father. Once the two were close but have since then had a falling out because of differences in real estate business that the two are partners in. This has now cast its shadow on the hotel business.



Sources say that G H Reddy is now using his high-profile son and the son's brother-in-law to push out his son-in-law.



And the share-holding pattern of the company has also helped him. Anji Reddy, chairman of Dr Reddy's Lab, owns 13 per cent of the company.



"If Anji Reddy's 13 per cent is added to G H Reddy's 38 per cent, G V Prasad and Satish Reddy can clearly wrest control of the company, provided that Anji Reddy plays ball," an analyst said.



G V Prasad and Satish Reddy are on the nine-member directors' board of the hotel by virtue of their fathers' shareholdings.



"It is a fact that serious differences have cropped up between us. G V Prasad and Satish are on one side and I am on the other. But we are trying to ensure that the differences will have no impact on the (hotel) business. But if there is no amicable solution through negotiations, I will have to seek a legal remedy," Murali K Reddy told TOI. Murali's contention is that the land on which Green Park stands in Hyderabad is his own.



G V Prasad, however, refused to comment on the differences. "There is nothing like that," Prasad said implying that everything was hunky dory.