Accor has announced that it is
acquiring a 28.9% equity interest in Club Mediterranee, including the
21.2% of shares held by Agnelli Group (Exor/Ifil) and 7.7% held by Caisse
des Depots et Consignations (CDC). With the acquisition, Accor will become
the core shareholder in Club Mediterranee, which enjoys forefront brand
identity and expertise in the leisure segment. The transaction is subject
to approval by the monopolies and mergers commissions.
The transaction will be based on an acquisition price of 45 euros for each
Club Mediterranee share, for a total of 252 million euros, plus an
earn-out clause, representing a maximum of 41 million euros as for the
Agnelli Group and 550,000 Accor shares as for the CDC Group. It will be
financed by ORANE convertible bonds, available to every shareholders, for
a total of 280 million euros, based on one 40 euros bond per Accor share.
CDC has agreed to underwrite the issue, if necessary in full, to
facilitate the transaction. Those terms respect Accor’s financial
structure.

By becoming Club Mediterranee’s core shareholder, with the full support of
its management, Accor will help the company to strengthen its
profitability. Accor’s position as an industry leader in Europe and a
major force in global tourism will also enable Club Mediterranee to
successfully pursue its strategy of moving up-market and its development.

In creating this strategic partnership with Club Mediterranee, Accor,
which operates, out of 4,000 hotels, 200 leisure properties in 35
countries, is reaffirming its commitment to playing a leadership role in
this growing segment that is certain to become increasingly structured.
For many years, Accor’s strategy has been to offer a comprehensive range
of products and services worldwide to business and leisure customers, who
often overlap.

“We are confident in the Club Mediterranee management team and the
Chairman of its Executive Board, who have already gotten the company’s
turnaround off to a good start. With Henri Giscard d’Estaing and his
teams, we will quickly and realistically study possible synergies as well
as all operating and marketing opportunities beneficial to both companies.
We will also promote cross-fertilization of experience. The closer ties
offer interesting prospects for both companies,” said Jean-Marc Espalioux,
Chairman of the Accor Management Board, who emphasized “the image of
leisure hotels, for which demand will inevitably increase, reflects
favorably on all Accor hotels at a time when our properties want to tailor
their offers more closely to the changing tastes of non-business, leisure
and weekend customers.”
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