A major shareholder in Millennium & Copthorne hotels has accused the firm’s independent directors of settling for a knock-down price for the business after an offer to take it private emerged last week.
Fidelity International, which owns just under 3% of the company, making it its fifth biggest shareholder, was on Monday trying to galvanise support from other minority shareholders in order to convince the companys management to think again about recommending the offer.
Alex Wright, who runs the Fidelity Special Values investment trust, said the hotel company was worth “far more” than the 545p-a-share offer put forward by majority owner City Developments last Monday. This is a 23.7% premium to the firms closing price of 452.7p on the last trading day before the offer was made.
