1. At a Glance – Blink and You’ll Miss the Turnaround
SAMHI Hotels is that guy who partied too hard for years, maxed out credit cards, and then suddenly showed up at the family wedding in a tailored suit saying, “Relax, I’ve got this now.”
Market cap sits around ₹3,783 Cr, stock chilling at ₹171, down ~14% in 3 months and ~22% in 6 months, while the business itself is quietly posting one of the cleanest operational recoveries in the Indian hotel space. FY25 sales crossed ₹1,222 Cr, EBITDA margins are flexing at 36%, and Q3 FY26 PAT jumped 111% YoY to ₹481 mn (₹48.1 Cr, for those who like crores). RevPAR clocked ₹5,643, up 13.3% YoY, while total income grew 16.2%.
On valuation, SAMHI trades at ~24x P/E, lower than most hotel peers who behave like they’re running Taj Palace on every street corner. Balance sheet still carries ₹1,726 Cr debt, ROCE is a modest 9.4%, interest coverage is thin at 1.86x, but the direction of travel is unmistakably positive. This is not a “cheap hotel stock,” but it is a repair-in-progress luxury portfolio story.
Question for you already: Do you value hotel stocks on today’s leverage or tomorrow’s stabilized EBITDA?
2. Introduction – From Balance Sheet Biryani to Branded Buffet
SAMHI Hotels didn’t wake up one fine morning and decide to become profitable. It’s been a long, sweaty gym session of asset acquisitions, brand tie-ups, refinancing, and patience-testing gestation periods. For years, the company was known more for interest expense than room revenue. FY19–FY23 was basically a crash course in how leverage can humble even well-located hotels.
Then came IPO money in 2023, followed by asset churn, GIC walking in with a ₹750 Cr commitment, and management finally getting breathing room. Suddenly, the same hotels that were bleeding cash started throwing EBITDA confetti.
SAMHI’s core philosophy is simple: own business hotels in high-demand micro-markets, slap a global brand on them, renovate ruthlessly, and let Marriott/Hyatt/IHG do the heavy lifting. They are not running backpacker hostels or wedding lawns. This is weekday corporate travel, airport traffic, and MICE demand – boring, predictable, cash-generating stuff (once debt stops eating it).
But here’s the tension: the stock market hates leverage and loves certainty. SAMHI is still paying for its past sins, even as operations
scream recovery. That gap between perception and numbers is where the entire SAMHI debate lives.
So ask yourself: Is this a cyclical hotel play… or a platform story hiding under debt?
3. Business Model – WTF Do They Even Do?
Let’s simplify it without dumbing it down.
SAMHI is not a hotel operator. It is a hotel owner + asset manager. The rooms, land, buildings belong to SAMHI (or its SPVs). The day-to-day operations belong to Marriott, Hyatt, or IHG. SAMHI collects room revenue, pays management fees, services debt, and keeps the leftover cash (eventually).
The Secret Sauce
- Acquisition-led turnaround: Buy stressed or under-managed hotels.
- Brand upgrade: Convert random independent hotels into Courtyard, Fairfield, Hyatt Place, Holiday Inn Express, etc.
- Renovation + repositioning: Spend capex, raise ARRs, improve occupancy.
- Stabilize and sweat the asset.
They currently own 32 hotels with 4,948 rooms across 14 cities, spread across 10 global brands. This diversification matters because no single city or brand can nuke the P&L.
Segment Mix FY25
- Upper Upscale & Upscale – 22%
- Upper Mid-scale – 45%
- Mid-scale – 33%
Translation: This is not ultra-luxury (no palace vibes), but high-efficiency branded business hotels. Think consultants, airline crew, corporate offsites, not honeymoon Instagram reels.
This model works only if demand stays strong and financing costs don’t choke cash flows. Which leads us to the real question: Can SAMHI run faster than its interest expense?
4. Financials Overview – Numbers Don’t Lie, They Just Judge Silently
Q3 (December) → Annualised EPS = Average of Q1, Q2, Q3 EPS ×
