February 24, 2010
French hotels and services company Accor SA Wednesday said it will proceed with the plan to split its operations into two separately listed companies by late June, in a bid to attract investors at a time when hotel occupancy rates show signs of stabilizing.
“The two business have reached critical mass,” Accor Chief Executive Gilles Pelisson said on a conference call Wednesday, referring to the group’s services, or vouchers activity and its hotels operations.
The company, which runs Sofitel and Ibis hotel chains and sells lunch vouchers to corporate human resources departments, last year ended years of criticism that the businesses are too different to exist together in the same group with plans for a separation.
Accor, Europe’s largest hotels company measured by the number of hotels owned, Wednesday gave details of the planned split, which will result in the hotels group holding most of the group’s £1.6 billion debt.
The autonomous hotels group, which will retain the Accor name, aims to rapidly reduce its debt of £1.2 billion by selling assets, such as the company’s 49% stake in French casino operator Groupe Lucien Barriere and hotel properties.
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Under Pelisson’s direction, Accor has progressively sold off hotel properties, replacing them with lease contracts in order to free capital locked up in real estate assets. The company has emphasized franchise and management contracts, a focus it plans to deepen, Mr. Pelisson said.
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