A major investor in budget beds chain easyHotel today launched a £138.7 million takeover bid only for founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou to slam the offer minutes later.
The bid for easyHotel was from fund manager ICAMAP, easyHotel’s largest shareholder with 37%, and property fund Ivanhoe Cambridge. It offered 95p a share, representing a 34.8% premium to last week’s close of 70.5p. But Sir Stelios urged investors to reject the “low-ball” offer for the chain he founded in 2004.
This put him on a collision course with the board, which recommended the bid as “fair and reasonable”.
Sir Stelios, who owns 27%, is the company’s second largest shareholder.
He said: “I find the offer from ICAMAP to be very low and I urge all other shareholders to take no action until the true value and future potential of easyHotel can be evaluated.”
He added that the stock has been as high as 128p just 15 months ago.
Harm Meijer, founding partner at ICAMAP, said the company needs “significant investment” to expand in Europe, adding that the current structure of the shareholder base is ill-suited to attracting the new capital.
He also said he was “open-minded” about taking easyHotel private.
EasyHotel opened its first hotel in South Kensington in 2005 and grew fast, floating in London in June 2014, and now has 38 hotels offering rooms at around £70 to £80 per night.
It has struggled recently and in April it reported a loss of £120,000 in the six months to the end of March.
