The publication next week of the Six Continents demerger particulars is designed to give investors an unparalled insight into the operations of one of the world’s biggest hospitality companies.
This is the group behind such pub and restaurant concepts as All Bar One, Harvester, Browns and Vintage Inns, while the other side of the business owns hotels in some of the best locations in the world, including London’s Park Lane, Central Park in New York and the seafront at Cannes.
Yet, despite management’s best efforts to outline the sparkling prospects for these two businesses when they are separately listed, there is growing speculation that the listing particulars will give rivals and private equity groups the opportunity to weigh up whether now is the time to pounce.
Hilton Group, named yesterday as a potential bidder for the hotel arm, played down the idea. A spokesman declared: “It’s tittle-tattle. Brokers and venture capitalists are all running around trying to marry people off, but there’s nothing to say. We keep a weather eye on all that’s going on but we’re not going to rise to this sort of of speculation.”
Analysts, however, are convinced that the City’s sharpest brains are running their slide rules over both sides of the group. “Everyone is looking at this,” said one. “It’s just too big and too strategic an opportunity for them not to be looking.”
Some are comparing Six Continents’ position to that of Safeway, which since the emergence of Wm Morrison as a bidder has attracted putative bids from at least five other suitors, including Wal-Mart, the US venture capitalist Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) and Philip Green, the retail entrepreneur behind Bhs.
Hugh Osmond is the name on most people’s lips when it comes to listing potential bidders for Six Continents Retail, or Mitchells & Butlers, as it will be called following April’s demerger. In some ways, there are parallels with the pub business he managed to winkle out of Allied Domecq, despite the drinks group’s determination to sell to Whitbread.
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Source Times Online
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