Bill Gates, Saudi prince in bid to take Four Seasons private: Knowledge Driven Revolution

Companies in the empires of Bill Gates and Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud have teamed with the CEO of Four Seasons Hotels Inc. to make a $3.7-billion US takeover bid to take the chain private.

Four Seasons said the takeover group includes CEO Isadore Sharp and his holding company Triples Holdings Ltd., along with Kingdom Hotels International, a company held by a trust created by Bin Talal, and Cascade Investment LLC, a firm owned by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.

Kingdom and Cascade are offering $82 US per share in cash for the outstanding shares of Four Seasons. The firms said that represents a 28.4-per-cent premium on the Nov. 3 closing price of the hotel chain's shares on the New York Stock Exchange.

Triples Holdings, the controlling shareholder in Four Seasons, would wind up with about 10 per cent of the shares of the hotel chain, through a separate class of voting shares, if the takeover is successful. Kingdom and Cascade would split the remainder of the shares.

Sharp would stay on as chairman and CEO of Four Seasons, which will remain headquartered in Toronto.

If the takeover is completed, Sharp will be entitled to a $288-million US long-term incentive agreement put in place in 1989.

The board of directors of Four Seasons has formed a special committee that will examine the takeover offer and recommend whether to accept it.

Four Seasons shares on Monday jumped 29 per cent (up $20.95 to $93.06) on the TSX in the wake of the "going private" announcement.

Four Seasons is not the first Canadian hotel company purchased by Bin Talal. His Kingdom Hotels was involved in the purchase earlier this year of Fairmont Hotels.

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