SoftBank-Backed OYO Elevates Key Executive to Board

(Bloomberg) -- OYO Hotels, the SoftBank Group Corp.-backed startup that's built up a large chain of branded hotels and vacation homes around the world, has elevated a key executive to the board to help it focus on profitability and quality control.

Aditya Ghosh, who had served as OYO's chief executive officer for India and South Asia, is stepping up to a board position and will be succeeded by Rohit Kapoor, the company's current new real estate businesses chief. On the board of directors, Ghosh joins founder and group CEO Ritesh Agarwal, SoftBank Vision Fund Managing Partner Munish Varma and recent addition Betsy Atkins, an early investor in Yahoo and EBay Inc, among others.

Before joining OYO a year ago, Ghosh headed up India's leading budget airline Indigo. He is now set to focus on sustainability and the path to profitability, OYO said in a statement on Monday. Ghosh will oversee a wide portfolio of business areas, spanning safety and security, customer experience, corporate governance, revenue management and stakeholder communications. OYO has been growing at a rapid speed, but its reputation has been tarnished along the way by customer complaints about bad experiences and grievances about poor or unfair treatment from several of the over 20,000 hotel owners in its chain.

Citing Ghosh's strong business acumen and track record, OYO group CEO Agarwal said he is “the perfect choice for this larger and more strategic role, at a global level.” Ghosh said he would further build OYO as a global brand “by not just growing fast but growing right.”

OYO, based in Gurgaon in the suburbs of India's capital New Delhi, was founded six years ago by then-teenager Ritesh Agarwal. For India's budget travelers, OYO's promise of standardized and predictable quality stays was a breath of fresh air from a hotel-booking market that was rife with misleadingly pretty online photos that bore little resemblance to the decrepit rooms found upon arrival. The company's staff help hotel owners upgrade everything from linen to bathroom fixtures to toiletries, with a bright red OYO sign acting as a seal of approval, encouraging travelers to book on its website. OYO takes a cut of roughly 20%.

SoftBank's Vision Fund has so far invested approximately $1.5 billion in OYO pushing its valuation to $10 billion. Other investors include Airbnb Inc., Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners. OYO is the first Indian startup to achieve global scale, growing quickly in major markets like China and the U.S.

Earlier this year, Agarwal, now 26, announced that he was borrowing about $2 billion to buy back a 20% OYO stake from other investors, with help from financial institutions. SoftBank Group founder Masayoshi Son personally guaranteed the loans to Agarwal, according to one person familiar with the matter, and among the institutions funding the buyback was Japan's Mizuho Financial Group Inc., other people familiar with the matter have said. Mizuho has declined to comment.

To contact the reporter on this story: Saritha Rai in Bangalore at srai33@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Edwin Chan at echan273@bloomberg.net, Vlad Savov

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