Jinjiang Holdings announced that its Luxembourg-based subsidiary has signed the deal to complete the purchase of Starwood Capital Group’s Louvre Hotel Group on February 27.The deal was first announced in the end of November 2014.
A cash payment of 996 million euro was made to Star SDL Holdings after deducting banking and contract fees for the 1.3 billion euro deal.
Europe’s second largest hotel group Louvre was acquired by Starwood Capital for US$3.2 billion in 2005. At a price tag of US$1.45 billion, the sale to Jinjiang represents a major loss but Starwood Capital was willing to let go of it to cut their losses from the poorly performing Louvre Hotel.
In order to turn business around, Jinjiang will bring in new blood to replace Louvre Hotel’s senior management. The group’s former president, top managers and supervisory board members have already resigned.
This deal is Jinjiang’s latest overseas acquisition in the expansion plan targeted to surpass Hilton Hotels to become the world’s third largest hotel group five years.
However Jinjiang Hotels is still far off its ambitious goal even with a 90,000 room boost in capacity from Louvre Hotels. It will have to increase its current capacity of 250,000 rooms to 700,000 rooms to make a bid for the third place in global ranking.(Translation by David)
