Four Seasons receives bid

TORONTO â€”  Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal and an investment firm owned by Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates launched an offer for Four Seasons Hotels Inc. on Monday that proposed to take the Canadian luxury hotelier private.

News of the bid from two of the world’s richest men sent the company’s stock up more than 29%, slightly topping the bid price of $82 a share in cash.

The suitors for Four Seasons include Prince Alwaleed’s Kingdom Hotels International, Gates’ Cascade Investment and Four Seasons’ founder Isadore Sharp and his family holding company, Triples Holdings Ltd.

Four Seasons said the deal valued the company at $3.7 billion. The group’s bid represents a 28% premium over Four Seasons’ closing share price of $63.87 on Friday.

The stock gained $18.63 to end at $82.50 on Monday.

Several analysts said a counteroffer was unlikely.

“These are good quality investors, and Sharp would not sell to fast money private equity firms, so I don’t see another player coming in the picture,� said Jacques Kavafian, an analyst at Research Capital.

Prince Alwaleed already has a 23% stake in Four Seasons, according to Reuters Knowledge. Cascade said in a filing Monday that it owned 8.2% of the company.

This is the Saudi billionaire’s second entry into the Canadian hotel segment this year. In January, his Kingdom Hotels joined forces with a U.S. investment group to buy another luxury chain, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, for $3.9 billion.

Sharp, 75, who would remain chairman and chief executive of Four Seasons, said the proposed deal would change little at the company, which manages about 68 hotels around the world, beyond its ownership.

The deal was driven by a desire to find long-term partners and oversee the ownership transition while still head of the company he founded, Sharp said.

Sharp’s Triples Holdings now controls about 65% of the voting rights in Four Seasons through multiple-voting shares, a spokeswoman said. If the deal goes through, Triples would have a 10% stake in the hotel chain, with the remaining shares split equally between Kingdom and Cascade.

Sharp would also gain $288 million from the bid, relating to a long-term incentive agreement created in 1989.

The offer is subject to shareholder and regulatory approval and the company’s board has established a special committee of independent directors to consider it.