InterContinental Hotels is to sell its remaining hotels, including its flagship venues in London, Paris, New York and Hong Kong.
In all, IHG will sell off 25 hotels over a period that chief executive Andy Cosslett said would take “years not months”.
According to reports from London, the 25 sites are valued on the company’s books at £1bn.
The UK Daily Telegraph suggested possible bidders include private equity buyers, including Blackstone, and property funds, especially Morgan Stanley’s real estate fund, which is already a substantial owner of InterContinental hotels.
The company denied the disposals were a U-turn, insisting the strategy was “evolutionary” and not prompted by any shareholder pressure”.
” If you can’t justify the retention of assets, you can’t hold on to them,” Cosslett said.
Intercontinental will, however, keep hold of the management of the hotels, probably on contracts of at least 50 years.
Looking ahead, Cosslett said Intercon would beat its target of adding net 60,000 hotel rooms by the end of 2008 – a target that involves the company opening one hotel a day for the next two years.
