Hotel aggregator OYO Rooms has acquired service apartment operator Novascotia Boutique Homes, in its first major purchase. Negotiations for the deal began in October 2017 and concluded last month. While OYO did not reveal the size of the deal, media reports have predicted that the buyout was worth nearly US $1 million or about Rs 6.71 crore. The Chennai-based Novascotia has a presence in Chennai, Coimbatore, Hyderabad, Kochi and Trivandrum, and OYO will expand the offering post-acquisition. It caters to the corporate sector and reportedly has an EBITDA of 14%. OYO plans to expand rapidly, and the company’s chief executive had earlier said it was looking for acquisitions. The startup is backed by SoftBank and secured a funding of $250 million (Rs 1600 crore) in a Series D round led by the SoftBank Vision Fund. Other investors in the brand include Sequoia India, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Greenoaks Capital and Hero Enterprise. Clash with Zo Rooms Last month, another hotel aggregator Zo Rooms dragged OYO’s parent company Oravel Stays to court alleging that OYO stole ZO Rooms’s data about employees, assets, hotel properties, etc. while conducting due diligence in a process of acquisition. The said acquisition did not eventually take place. ZO Rooms alleged in its petition that OYO obtained certain confidential information, and “in fact acquired the entire business of the petitioner (ZO Rooms) and is now refusing to pay the dues owed to the petitioner”. In 2015, OYO was exploring the acquisition of ZO Rooms, and this was even confirmed…
