Accor Buys the Swiss Luxury Brand Mövenpick
Date: April 2018, updated two days later.
Location: 80 hotels
Name: Movenpick Hotels
No. of Keys: 20,000 or so
Seller: According to Le Figaro, Accor plans to strengthen its luxury segment and is in ‘advanced’ negotiations to buy the Swiss group Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts. The newspaper refers to a total amount of the possible operation of ‘several hundred million euros, paid cash’.
The daily recalls that Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts, founded in 1973, plans to open another 40 establishments by 2021. Present in Europe, it is It also has a strong presence in Egypt, where it also operates eight vessels cruising the Nile and Lake Nasser.
Kingdom Holding, the holding company of the Saudi prince Al-Waleed, owns up to 33% of Mövenpick. In his March interview with Bloomberg, Alwaleed said he’s likely to split his company’s $13 billion of assets through a spin-off of its domestic property and other holdings.
Kingdom Holding’s domestic interests, most notably a 1 kilometre-high tower under construction in the Red Sea city of Jeddah, make up about half of the company’s assets.
The other two-thirds of Mövenpick belong to German billionaire August von Finck.
Moevenpick also owns international catering business Marche International, Mövenpick Wine, and Mövenpick Fine Foods.
Buyer: Holder of Sofitel and Pullman, the French hotel group had bought, against nearly three billion (US) dollars three years ago, the ‘high-end’ group Fairmont, Raffles and Swissôtel (FRHI).
Price: SF 560m (US$567) – €482m
The transaction implied a 14.9 times 2019e Ebitda multiple before synergies (including transaction costs), and less than 10 times pro forma 2019e Ebitda after run rate synergies and committed development pipeline.
THPT Comment: The deal is not yet confirmed (two days later it was!), but when Accor eyes a deal, there’s not much to stop them! Such a buy will take them nearer being the largest global hotel company, currently a position held by Marriott.
First Seen: L’Express Votre Argent