India’s biggest hotel chain is moving into Las Vegas. First stop: Hooters

OYO has signed a deal to buy the Hooters Casino Hotel in the Nevada gambling and entertainment hub, it announced Friday. The 657-room property will be rebranded the OYO Hotel & Casino Las Vegas, with a makeover expected to be completed by the end of the year. It’s OYO’s first property in the city.The deal is worth around $135 million, according to a source familiar with the transaction. Highgate, a US hospitality investment firm that partnered with OYO on the purchase, will take over the management of the hotel, while Nevada-based Paragon Gaming will continue operating the 35,000-square-foot casino. “We are excited to cater to a completely different audience segment and are certain that this will be the perfect start to OYO’s journey in Las Vegas,” OYO founder and CEO Ritesh Agarwal said in a statement. The six-year-old startup, headquartered in the tech hub of Gurgaon near New Delhi, is targeting global domination, saying earlier this year that it wants to be the world’s largest hotel chain by 2023. Since then, it has announced expansions in Japan, Europe and the United States, partnering with tech investment giant SoftBank (SFBTF) and buying Amsterdam-based vacation rental group @Leisure. In April, it snagged an investment from Airbnb that was reportedly worth as much as $200 million. OYO claims to be the third-largest hotel chain in the world by number of rooms, behind Marriott and Hilton, with more than 850,000 around the world. It owns or franchises hotels and vacation homes across 800 cities in 80 countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, China and Saudi Arabia. The company, valued at around $10 billion, announced in June that it will invest $300 million in the United States over the next few years. It currently operates 112 hotels in more than 60 US cities.