QIA and Kingdom Holding complete $3.2bn hotel deal

14 July 2016

AccorHotels now manages 150 Middle East properties

The Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), Saudi Arabia’s Kingdom Holding Company and Canada’s Oxford Properties have completed the $3.2bn FRHI Holdings share swap with France’s AccorHotels.

FRHI owns the Fairmont, Raffles and Swisshotel Brands.

Accor and FRHI have merged, with Accor now managing 150 hotels in the Middle East.

Kingdom Holding was paid SR1.27bn ($339m) and received 16.48 million new AccorHotels shares, as well as stakes in the Claremont and Savoy hotels.

Accor’s existing shareholders approved an $840m cash payment and 46.7 million new shares for the investors in return for FRHI.

Kingdom Holding now has a 5.8 per cent in the post-merger company while QIA holds a 10.4 per cent stake.

Accor now has 4,000 hotels globally, and expects $65m in revenue and cost savings from the merger. Its existing brands include Sofitel, Pullman, Novotel, Mercure and Ibis.

Kingdom Holding acquired a 35.3 per cent share in Fairmont in 1994. It told the Saudi stock exchange, the Tadawul, that it had extra costs of SR150m on the deal due to fluctuations in the value of the pound sterling and the euro against the dollar.

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