Alwaleed, Colony Buy Fairmont Hotels for $3.9 Billion

Alwaleed, Colony Buy Fairmont Hotels for $3.9 Billion

Jan. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the world's fifth-richest man, and Colony Capital LLC agreed to buy Fairmont Hotels & Resorts Inc. for $3.9 billion to gain 87 luxury hotels, thwarting any bid from billionaire Carl Icahn.

Alwaleed's Kingdom Hotels International and Colony Capital, a Los Angeles-based real estate investment firm, will pay $45 a share for Toronto-based Fairmont, the companies said today in a PRNewswire statement.

Thomas Barrack, chief executive officer of Colony, has spent more than $12 billion since 1991 buying lodging assets. The deal announced today will give Alwaleed a stake in a group of 33 Raffles hotels that Colony bought last year, including the 119-year-old Raffles Hotel in Singapore. Fairmont already manages hotels owned by Alwaleed, such as the Savoy in London.

~snip~

Fairmont has struggled in the past year as a rising Canadian dollar slowed American travel to Canada, where the company manages or franchises 59 hotels. It also owns hotels in places such as Acapulco in Mexico, Bermuda and Barbados and manages them in cities such as Washington, Seattle and Monte Carlo.

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000006&sid=at8IaMp9Ky_g&refer=home