“So, have you heard that Marriott might buy Accor?”
That’s what a trusted former colleague and hospitality industry expert told me last week, after hearing the same from multiple sources.
At first, it seemed highly improbable, perhaps even incredulous.
Like Bernstein Senior Analyst Richard Clarke, who covers European hotels and leisure, my initial reaction was: “I would genuinely eat my hat.”
But as we dug a bit deeper, reaching out to a number of different sources, as well as contacting both Marriott and Accor as well as another suggested possible suitor — InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) — nothing was entirely clear or conclusive.
The majority of sources whom we spoke to had not yet heard any such reports, and those who had couldn’t be entirely sure if the murmurs were actually true.
Whether or not Accor is in play, however, it’s clear that the hotel industry as a whole is still very much in a consolidation phase.
Starting with IHG’s $430 million purchase of Kimpton in 2015, the hospitality industry has seen a wave of massive mergers and acquisitions, two of the largest being Marriott’s $13.3 billion merger with Starwood in 2016, and Accor’s $2.7 billion buy of Fairmont, Raffles, and Swissotel.
IHG CEO Keith Barr last week suggested to Skift it was highly unlikely that IHG was in pursuit of Accor.
However, Barr did say, “Every public company is in play to some degree,” for the right price, obviously.
With that, we decided to ask ourselves the following questions, and to use them to explore what might happen next in terms of hotel consolidation. What follows is our investigation into what the future of hotel consolidation could be.
Is Accor Actually in Play? Would it Make an Attractive Investment?
When we asked an Accor spokesperson if the company were in play or up for sale, she responded: “No idea; have not heard anything.”
Barr, however, told us that Accor’s multiple is trading at a discount to IHG and to Marriott, meaning its share price could potentially be attractive to someone looking to buy it.
