British American Tobacco sells 9% ITC Hotels stake for $425 million

Dec 5 (Reuters) - British American Tobacco has sold more than half its stake in ITC Hotels for about 38 billion rupees ($424.70 million), the tobacco giant said on Friday.

BAT held a 15.3% stake in the company, which it sought to dilute to reduce debt and exit a non-strategic asset. After the 9% stake sale, it now holds 6.3%.

The maker of Lucky Strike and Dunhill cigarettes was the second-biggest shareholder in ITC Hotels before the sale, according to LSEG data. It inherited the stake when ITC Ltd spun off its hotels business in January while holding the largest stake.

BAT sold 187.5 million shares in ITC Hotels through an accelerated bookbuild process.

Shares of the India-listed company were down 1% on Friday.

($1 = 89.9450 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Ankita Bora and Raechel Thankam Job in Bengaluru; Editing by Rashmi Aich and Harikrishnan Nair)