Calcutta: The Gateway Hotel, a mid-segment hospitality address on the EM Bypass built around the Taj brand but mired in financial problems from the start, on Friday got a new owner who intends to expand and reposition it as a premium property.

A bankruptcy court in Calcutta has approved the resolution to turn around the hotel that had sunk into a bog of unpaid debt, limiting its ability to operate at full strength despite the strength of a name counted among the world's best in the hospitality business.

The Taj Group had been running the 80-room hotel under a management contract with the city-based Jalan Intercontinental Hotels Pvt Ltd, which built and continued to own the property. Based on the National Company Law Tribunal's order, the new owner of the property is the Calcutta-based Ozone Group that has its origins in realty.

A director of Shi Ram Residency Pvt Ltd, the Ozone Group company that received the court's nod to take over The Gateway Hotel, said it would pay Rs 111.11 crore to the creditors of Jalan Intercontinental. "We will further invest Rs 30 crore in the property to expand the number of rooms. Eighty rooms are operational. Another 120 rooms have been built, but we have to do the interiors."

The buzz is that the hotel could be repositioned as Taj Vivanta, a more upmarket product. Indian Hotels did not offer comment when contacted by Metro.

A source in the Ozone Group said the company would keep its "options open" to look beyond Indian Hotels, if the situation demands it. "We may look at Marriott as well," the source said.

The RDB Group had shown interest in taking over The Gateway Hotel. But the committee of creditors of Jalan Intercontinental, which owed nearly Rs 167 crore to financial institutions such as Edelweiss Asset Reconstruction Co Ltd, voted in favour of Ozone with a 99.67 per cent majority.

Insolvency proceedings against the company started in August 2017.

Additional reporting by Pinak Ghosh