By declaring to the Autorité des Marchés Financiers that it holds 11.70% in the capital and 10.2% of voting power in AccorHotels, the Chinese group Jin Jiang is now required to reveal its true intentions. The Chinese Group says it wishes to continue to increase its strength and may nominate members to the board of administrators to participate in strategic management...

A new episode has just come out in the AccorHotels-Jin Jiang financial drama. The Chinese group, which already owns 100% of Louvre Hotels Group, AccorHotels' leading competitor in France, announced to the AMF that it now owns 11.7% of the capital of AccorHotels, through Rubyrock Capital and Golden Apple Capital, two investment vehicles it controls. It thus also now owns 10.21% of voting rights. Legally required to declare its intentions, Jin Jiang affirm that is acting alone with no alliance with another shareholder, and that it does not exclude reaching other benchmarks.

It does not, for the moment, intend launch a takeover bid on the group, although it does foresee asking for one or more seats on the board of directors to influence the French group's strategic agenda.  The situation is unprecedented with a re-composition of the shareholders underway, situation is unprecedented with a reconfiguration of shareholders underway, since the merger between AccorHotels and Fairmont Raffles Hotels International remains to be formalized at the general shareholders meeting. The share-based payment transaction will bring in two important shareholders, Qatar's sovereign wealth fund (10.5%) and Kingdom Holdings (5.8%), the investment vehicle of the Saudi prince Al Waleed.

What could be the next step? Clearly there will be a new strategy and Jin Jiang's position can no longer be that of a simple silent shareholder. And yet, a merger of the leading French hotel groups would present major problems in terms of dominant position on the primary French and European markets. This climb does appear to have been initiated by the management of the target group or French authorities, unlike the PSA/Dongfeng operation, the other giant on the CAC40 with a Chinese industrial as a leading shareholder... furthermore, hotel observers will undoubtedly keep careful watch over the next draft of the strategic plan of PSA (to be revealed next April 5) to understand how synergies with the Chinese shareholder evolve. 

Further to this new rebound, the months to come will be decisive in learning the full intentions of Jin Jiang, which has globally engaged in restructuring of hotel groups.