City Developments offers to buy London-listed M&C for $2.35 bln

Property developer City Developments on Monday offered to buy the remaining shares in its London-listed hotel arm Millennium & Copthorne (M&C) Hotels for 1.8 billion pounds ($2.35 billion).

Millennium & Copthorne Hotels
Millennium & Copthorne Hotels website

Property developer City Developments on Monday offered to buy the remaining shares in its London-listed hotel arm Millennium & Copthorne (M&C) Hotels for 1.8 billion pounds ($2.35 billion).

Under the terms of the proposed offer, shareholders in M&C would get 552.5 pence in cash for each M&C share held, representing a premium of about 21.4 percent to the closing price per M&C share on 6 October, the company said in a regulatory filing.

The deal consideration would be made up of a cash amount of 545 pence per M&C share payable by Agapier Investments, together with a special dividend of 7.5 pence per M&C share, once the offer is declared wholly unconditional.

City Developments is part of Singapore-headquarterd Hong Leong Group, headed by billionaire Kwek Leng Beng.

City Developments already own about 65 percent stake in M&C, which comprises over 130 hotels spread across 17 countries, including the gateway cities of London, New York, Paris, Auckland, Dubai, Beijing and Singapore.

City Developments confirmed that it intends to maintain M&C's current business model and that it has no intention to sell or repurpose any of M&C's hotels in London or in New York.

Kwek Leng Beng, the billionaire chairman of City Developments, is the non-executive Chairman of M&C.

Shares in City Developments rose 0.3 percent to S$11.64 on the Singapore Exchange prior to the trading halt.

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