Back in November, Shanghai’s Jin Jiang Hotels and Luxembourg-based private equity fund Sino-Cee Fund acquired a majority stake in Radisson Hospitality.
Since then, the consortium has tried, with no luck yet, to buy up the company’s remaining shares – an option which Radisson is obligated to offer Jin Jiang before opening up that same offer elsewhere. On Monday, Radisson’s independent committee of the board of directors recommended a rejection of Jin Jiang’s final offer.
At the time of the acquisition in November, 87,552,187 shares traded to the consortium for SEK 35 per share (US$3.91). In December, the two companies made a bid for the rest of the shares at SEK 40 (US$4.46) and after subsequent rejected offers, made a final offer at SEK 42.50 (US$4.74) on January 4. Though the committee recommended rejecting that offer on Monday, Radisson (and parent company China-based HNA) has until February 4 to fully consider the offer.
The Jin Jiang consortium has stated that no further bid increases would be made.
Jin Jiang Hotels is the fifth largest hotel group in the world with a 12% stake in AccorHotels as well as having acquired number of significant hospitality brands in recent years, including Paris-based Louvre Hotels. The transaction makes Jin Jiang the world’s seventh-largest hotel operator with 344,000 rooms, according to STR data.
Radisson Hotel Group has over 1,400 hotels and 220,000 guestrooms operating or in development under its eight global brands.