Hyatt Hotels has expressed interest in taking over NH Hotel Group. However, NH Hotel shareholders are currently exploring an offer from Thailand’s Minor International who acquired a 8.6% stake in the group in May 2018.
“Hyatt has a demonstrated track record of making strategic investments to extend the reach of our brands and create value for our stakeholders,” Mark Hoplamazian, Hyatt’s president and chief executive officer, said in an emailed statement Thursday to Bloomberg. “In keeping with our growth strategy, we submitted a letter of intent expressing our interest in pursuing a potential acquisition of NH Hotel Group.”
Earlier this year, Minor International reached an agreement to acquire 30,000,000 shares in NH Hotel Group in a transaction valued at EUR 192 million (US$225m), which together with its existing shareholding will increase Minor International’s stake in NH Hotel Group to 8.6% on a fully diluted basis.
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NH Hotel Group is the sixth largest hotel chain in Europe, and its four main clusters, Spain, Benelux, Central Europe and Italy, are drivers for solid growth going forward.
However, Minor's chief operating officer Dillip Rajakarier said in an interview to Bloomberg that it was too late for the Chicago-based bidder Hyatt.
“Hyatt has entered the church and the bride has already left,” said Rajakarier. “Our reaction is to continue and complete this transaction,” he added.
However, countering Minor's statement, Hyatt said it believed it would be in a position to launch a cash offer to acquire 100% of the company at a superior value to Minor’s June offer, which valued the Spanish hotel group at up to 2.5 billion euros ($2.9 billion), the letter said, according to a Reuters report.