Oyo CEO Claims Backer SoftBank Isn’t Trying to Sway Its Hotel Strategy
Photo Credit: OYO 143 The K9 Central Hotel, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. CEO Ritesh Agarwal said the company's business plan remains on course. Oyo Hotels and Homes
Skift Take
WeWork's implosion is putting pressure on all of SoftBank's investments, Oyo included. If it's not changing course already, the budget hotel chain may soon have to decide whether, as CEO Ritesh Agarwal put it, to grow fast or grow right.
Despite the comeuppance of SoftBank-backed stablemate WeWork and dissent among hotel associations and some property owners in the United States and India, Oyo's founder and CEO Ritesh Agarwal said there have been no recommendations or orders from the Japanese investment giant or other shareholders about changing strategy or business practices.
SoftBank has invested more than $1.5 billion in Oyo, according to Skift Research estimates.
"We have received no such advice/directive from SoftBank or any of our investors," Agarwal told Skift. He said the only guidance from shareholders has been to make good on the budget hotel chain's business plan.
"We work closely with all our board members, including SoftBank Vision Fund’s Munish Varma (SoftBank's managing partner for Europe, Middle East and Africa, and Asia)," Agarwal said. "He has always encouraged us to focus on delivering on what we agreed to deliver in our operating plans, and as long as we are doing
