“C arlson, the owner of Radisson and other hotel brands that are part of Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group, is exploring strategic alternatives for the hotel company that could include a partnership, merger or sale of the company, according to people familiar with the matter.”
I normally do not engage in articles pertaining to rumors; but I found this article written by Craig Karmin and Dana Mattioli of The Wall Street Journal to be quite interesting.
With greater than 1,100 hotel and resort properties worldwide with nearly 174,000 rooms world-wide, Carlson Rezidor is one of the largest hotel companies in the world, including brands such as:
- Country Inns & Suites
- Park Inn by Radisson
- Park Plaza
- Quorvus Collection
- Radisson
- Radisson Blu
Could Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group Be Sold or Acquired?
InterContinental Hotels Group PLC agreed to acquire Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants — which was then the largest independent boutique hotel operator in the world with 62 hotel properties in 28 cities and a sophisticated food and beverage operator with 71 destination restaurants and bars — for $430 million in cash in December of 2014.
Back in November of 2015, frequent travelers were rocked with the news that Marriott International, Incorporated announced its acquisition of Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide, Incorporated for $12.2 billion, ensuring the combined entity to easily become the largest lodging company in the world with a combined total of currently a whopping 30 brands consisting of 5,573 hotel properties in greater than 100 countries; and that could increase — unless some of the hotel properties are divested or sold.
The consolidation of the lodging industry continued with the announcement of AccorHotels to acquire Fairmont, Raffles and Swissôtel last month by issuing 46.7 million new Accor shares and a cash payment of $840 million.
An acquisition of Carlson Rezidor by a major multinational lodging company could potentially surpass the result of the Marriott and Starwood deal as the largest lodging company in the world.
Frequent travelers have been talking about the possibility of merger or acquisition activity at both this discussion posted on FlyerTalk and this discussion posted at InsideFlyer.
Summary
“Interesting”, posted FlyerTalk member SanDiego1K. “I hope it is someone with higher standards for their hotels.”
That pretty much sums it up for me as well. Although its Club Carlson frequent guest loyalty programs used to have aggressively generous promotions, I was never particularly interested in building loyalty to the Carlson Rezidor group of hotel and resort properties, as the brands were generally not appealing to me.
I did stay at the Park Inn by Radisson Budapest hotel property. My stay was fine; but it was nothing special. However, I cannot complain — considering what I paid for the room.
If Carlson — which owns the profitable Carlson Wagonlit Travel company amongst its holdings — does decide to sell off its Carlson Rezidor division, it will be interesting to see which lodging company is interested enough to acquire it.
Please stay tuned…
Photograph ©2014 by Brian Cohen.
