For its Saturday edition the Daily Telegraph sent its deputy City editor to profile Richard North, the man lined up to be chief executive of a demerged Six Continents hotels division, while Hugh Osmond, the man determined to see no such demerger takes place, had to make do with a matching profile by a mere associate City editor.
That may reflect the Telegraph's view of what is going to happen at this Wednesday's meeting in Westminster, when SixC shareholders have to vote on whether or not to accept the group's demerger plans. Certainly the consensus seems to be that while it will be a close contest, North and his fellow executives from Six Continents will win the necessary 75% mandate, and the assault from Osmond and his team from Capital Management and Investment will be over, after the shortest multi-billion pound bid battles ever.
However, there is no guarantee the fat lady will be singing at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in time for lunch. The Osmond team had the embarrassment of having to admit to the Takeover Panel on Friday that it could not prove a claim by an unnamed member of the CMI side that 15 to 20% of SixC shareholders were in favour of a postponement of Wednesday's meeting. But CMI received a big boost when Terry Smith of the City firm Collins Stewart joined its side. He is well-known in the City for being a dispassionate judge of cases solely on their financial merits. If Smith says that he "can't see what there is to lose by postponing the demerger in order to see if Osmond, or other potential bidders, come up with an acceptable bid," then many institutional investors in SixC will listen and reflect very hard.
There is no doubt that SixC will be polling its big investors right up to Tuesday night, and if the group feels there is any chance of not getting the necessary 75% vote in favour of demerger, Wednesday's meeting will be postponed. The private equity concerns CVC Capital Partners and Texas Pacific Group are now said to be putting together a £6bn "friendly" bid with the hotel groups Marriott and Starwood for the whole of SixC, which would need a postponement of Wednesday's meeting to succeed. Since such a bid would have the immediate involvement of skilled hotel operators that the Osmond bid does not possess, that may be enough to persuade a couple more institutions to come out against the demerger timetable.
Ultimately, SixC shareholders have to decide whether they will get more money selling the group as one concern or two. There is a strong feeling that Osmond and CMI are bidding now because they believe they will get the pubs and restaurants division, perceived as their true target, cheaper than if they waited until it was severed from the hotels division. Although Osmond says that if the demerger is voted through he will withdraw his bid, it is hard to believe a man who has been involved in three pub companies, Punch, Spirit and Wellington, would not plan an assault on the SixC pubs side once it was floated as Mitchells & Butlers, leaving the hotels side, Intercontinental, to someone else who knows the hotels business.
Meanwhile we should all be grateful to Osmond for providing some great entertainment to take our minds off the possibility of war in the Middle East. Already he has called the SixC team "muppets", and taken a swipe at Tim Martin's share price and haircut after the JD Wetherspoon chairman sniffed that Hugh had no record of operational management and "there'll be a bid from Donny Osmond next". It is hard not to suspect that, whatever the result on Wednesday, this one will run and run.
That may reflect the Telegraph's view of what is going to happen at this Wednesday's meeting in Westminster, when SixC shareholders have to vote on whether or not to accept the group's demerger plans. Certainly the consensus seems to be that while it will be a close contest, North and his fellow executives from Six Continents will win the necessary 75% mandate, and the assault from Osmond and his team from Capital Management and Investment will be over, after the shortest multi-billion pound bid battles ever.
However, there is no guarantee the fat lady will be singing at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in time for lunch. The Osmond team had the embarrassment of having to admit to the Takeover Panel on Friday that it could not prove a claim by an unnamed member of the CMI side that 15 to 20% of SixC shareholders were in favour of a postponement of Wednesday's meeting. But CMI received a big boost when Terry Smith of the City firm Collins Stewart joined its side. He is well-known in the City for being a dispassionate judge of cases solely on their financial merits. If Smith says that he "can't see what there is to lose by postponing the demerger in order to see if Osmond, or other potential bidders, come up with an acceptable bid," then many institutional investors in SixC will listen and reflect very hard.
There is no doubt that SixC will be polling its big investors right up to Tuesday night, and if the group feels there is any chance of not getting the necessary 75% vote in favour of demerger, Wednesday's meeting will be postponed. The private equity concerns CVC Capital Partners and Texas Pacific Group are now said to be putting together a £6bn "friendly" bid with the hotel groups Marriott and Starwood for the whole of SixC, which would need a postponement of Wednesday's meeting to succeed. Since such a bid would have the immediate involvement of skilled hotel operators that the Osmond bid does not possess, that may be enough to persuade a couple more institutions to come out against the demerger timetable.
Ultimately, SixC shareholders have to decide whether they will get more money selling the group as one concern or two. There is a strong feeling that Osmond and CMI are bidding now because they believe they will get the pubs and restaurants division, perceived as their true target, cheaper than if they waited until it was severed from the hotels division. Although Osmond says that if the demerger is voted through he will withdraw his bid, it is hard to believe a man who has been involved in three pub companies, Punch, Spirit and Wellington, would not plan an assault on the SixC pubs side once it was floated as Mitchells & Butlers, leaving the hotels side, Intercontinental, to someone else who knows the hotels business.
Meanwhile we should all be grateful to Osmond for providing some great entertainment to take our minds off the possibility of war in the Middle East. Already he has called the SixC team "muppets", and taken a swipe at Tim Martin's share price and haircut after the JD Wetherspoon chairman sniffed that Hugh had no record of operational management and "there'll be a bid from Donny Osmond next". It is hard not to suspect that, whatever the result on Wednesday, this one will run and run.
