Sahara looks to raise $650 million loan to fund bail

Mumbai: India's Sahara conglomerate said on Friday it aimed to raise $650 million in loans to secure the release of its chief, in jail for nearly nine months over the group's failure to refund billions of dollars to investors in outlawed bonds.

Sahara, which owns the Grosvenor House in London and the Plaza Hotel in New York, has also sought the Indian Supreme Court's permission to take over an existing loan on its three overseas hotels from Bank of China.

The group will go for refinancing after that, Sahara said in a statement, without naming the refinancing bank.

Sahara did not say how much was the outstanding loan from Bank of China, but court documents previously showed an amount of more than $900 million. The Supreme Court will hear Sahara's plea on Tuesday, the company statement said.

The Supreme Court has asked Sahara to pay 100 billion rupees ($1.6 billion) initially to secure bail for its chief Subrata Roy, one of India's best-known business tycoons.

Roy has been held in Delhi since March 4 in a long-running dispute with the country's markets regulator over the refunds.

The regulator last month accused Sahara of deliberately failing to sell the marquee overseas hotels, which Sahara had told the court it would sell or mortgage to raise the bail money.