Club Méditerranée’s board of directors last Friday advised that the 21 euro per share takeover offer for the holiday group from Investindustrial private equity fund (see a previous post of BeBeez) was in shareholders’ interest (download here the press release).
The offer will be launched by Global Resort, an investment veichle partecipated at 10% by two international operators in the tourism and hotel sector ( South African entrepreneur Sol Kerzner and Brazilian GP Investments). Global Resort is acting in agreement with Strategic Holdings sarl, the investment veichle owned by the Bonomi family through its BI-Invest holding. The latter is the principal investor in Investindustrial’s funds. In the last few months Strategic Holdings boiught 3,556,439 Club Med shars on the market and now controls a 10.566% stake in Club Med’s shareholders’ capital
“The board unanimously considers that the offer is in keeping with shareholders’ interests and recommends those who are looking to receive cash immediately to offer their shares,” the board said in its statement last Friday.
The board added, however, that in light of contradicting statements published in the press, it could not “unreservedly” confirm that the offer was in the company’s interest. This sentence has to be read as a concession to current chairman and ceo Henri Giscard d’Estaing, son of former French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing, Even if the board’s decision has been taken without Giscard d’Estaing and the other board members who are directly involved in the other offer at 17.50 euro per share from French private equity operator Ardian and Chinese conglomerate Fosun International.
Ardian won’t be available to make an higher offer for Club Med while Fosun would be, MF-Milano Finanza wrote last Saturday. So Giscard d’Estaing asked his board members’ colleagues a couple of weeks more to find a new ally to Fosun. That ally however might not be Investindustrial as Andrea Bonomi, the principla partners, said that he want to divide the roles of chairman and ceo and already received the backing of Serge Trigano, the son of Club Mediterranee founder Gilbert Trigano, who would become the resort chain’s non-executive chairman if Bonomi wins. So Giscard d’Estaing would be out of the game in that case.
On the other side Investindustrial left an open door to Fosun however. In its statement actually the board ask for more details about a possible strategic partnership between Club Med and Fosun in case of success of Investindustrial’s offer. A strategic parntership in China with Fosun is actually an hypothesis that Bonomi pointed at in its plan.
Meanwhile Fosun rounded its stake in Club Med’s shareholders capital at 10.44% from previous 9.4% after having converted all its convertible notes (Oceane), Frances’s Amf stock market regulator said last Friday (download here Amf’s statement)
Under an indicative calendar provided by Bonomi, his offer would start on Aug. 7 and run until Sept. 11
