It is one of the most famous luxury hotels in New York: The Plaza Hotel, right on Fifth Avenue, just one block from Trump Tower, and right on the southeast corner of Central Park. The Beatles and Marlene Dietrich have already lived here, and the hotel has made prominent appearances in over 30 Hollywood films, including “North by Northwest” by Alfred Hitchcock (1959), “The King of New York” with Christopher Walken (1990) and “Scent” of a Woman »with Al Pacino (1991). It is also famous because it was once owned by the current US President Donald Trump, who even married his former wife Marla Maples there in 1993. He took it over in 1988 for $ 390 million, but had to sell it in 1995, on the verge of bankruptcy, for only $ 325 million to the Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who then handed management over to the Fairmont Group.
The current owner is the Indian Sahara India Pariwar Group, but Prince Alwaleed still has a minority stake. But now the hotel is changing hands again: The state-owned Katara Holding is taking over the 75 percent share of the Sahara hotel for around 600 million dollars, as reported by Reuters. The same company already owns other famous hotels like the Savoy or the Connaught, biede in London.
It is not yet known whether Prince Alwaleed will withdraw and sell his 25% stake. However, as is well known, Qatar has been in a clinch with Saudi Arabia and other Arab states for over a year, who accuse the country of supporting terrorist organizations, which Qatar denies. That threw Qatar back somewhat financially; apparently the oil-rich Gulf state now has enough financial muscles again to be able to make such investments.
In any case, the Sahara Group is happy to get rid of the hotel. It took over this from the Israeli owner Elad Group in 2012 for $ 570 million. Elad had rebuilt the hotel and integrated numerous rental apartments, so that the hotel itself was practically just a boutique hotel. Sahara has recently been increasingly using retail as an additional source of income and has been successful with it. However, Sahara Chairman Subrata Roy was targeted by the authorities in India in 2014 for money laundering allegations and has since tried to get rid of the hotel.
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