Grande Jolly, in which NH Hoteles has a majority holding, has submitted the prospectus for a Takeover Bid for the shares of Jolly Hotels held by minority shareholders to the CONSOB (the body that governs the securities market in Italy), in line with the plans for the Spanish company to acquire Jolly Hotels. Last November, NH Hoteles, Banca Intesa and Joker signed a master agreement whereby they set up the company Grande Jolly (NH Italia 51%, Joker 42% and Banca Intesa 7%), for the purpose of controlling around 75% of the capital of the hotel chain Jolly Hotels. On January 31st 2007, the Italian competition authority, the Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato, gave its permission for the setting up of the new company Grande Jolly, as a result of which the requirement for starting the operations to take over Jolly Hotels was fulfilled.

In this context, NH Hoteles, via the company Grande Jolly, has submitted the prospectus for a Takeover Bid for all the shares held by minority shareholders (5,104,578 shares representing 25.6% of Jolly Hotels). The price per share set in the Bid will be €25 which, in compliance with European Law, is the same as the price paid to the founding shareholders of Grande Jolly, thus ensuring that all shareholders are treated on an equal footing. The operation will involve a total outlay of €127.6m, in the event that all the shares covered by the Bid take it up.

In the event that the response to the Bid were to mean that Grande Jolly would have a holding of more than 90% of Jolly’s share capital, the company would make a Residual Acquisition Public Offering, so that the Italian hotel chain can be delisted.

NH Hoteles recently submitted a three-year expansion plan in which a major portion of its investments are to go to Italy. Around 25% of the investments provided for in the plan will be made in the Italian market, where NH Hoteles plans to have more than 14,000 rooms by the end of 2009. 

A major feature of the integration of Jolly Hotels into the Italian subsidiary of NH Hoteles, as the end result of the agreement signed, is that the two companies are complementary as far as customer profile, services on offer, strategic urban locations and broad geographical cover are concerned. The agreement means that NH Hoteles consolidates its leading position in the business sector in Europe and becomes the leader in the Italian market.

Jolly Hotels is the leading hotel chain in the Italian market and is listed on the stock exchange. It is present in 7 countries with 45 hotels and 7,452 rooms, 3,263 of which are under ownership. It operates 38 hotels in Italy with 5,863 rooms in the major cities in the country (Rome, Milan, Turin, etc.) where the tourist attraction provides a stable supplement to the business segment. Jolly Hotels is also present in the following major European cities: London (285 rooms), Berlin (254), Cologne (220 rooms), Amsterdam (218 rooms), Brussels (193) and Paris (167). Jolly Hotels also has a 252-room hotel right in the financial and tourist centre of New York.

This operation, when taken together with the operation recently concluded between NH Hoteles and the Framon hotel chain, means that the Spanish company will be operating around 56 hotels at major destinations in Italy, which puts it in a position to take the lead in the much needed concentration of the fragmented hotel market in Italy.
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