The Dutch billionaire behind travel management company BCD Travel has reportedly built up a 3.2% stake in InterContinental Hotels Group, worth nearly £200 million.
John Fentener van Vlissingen, whose business travel empire has annual sales of $24 billion, declared a holding of 7.5 million shares in the Crowne Plaza and Holiday Inn operator via his Beverweerd Investments and Boron Securities divisions.
The hotels group has faced persistent pressure from a US activist investor, Marcato Capital Management, to consider merging with a big rival, an idea that chief executive Richard Solomons has dismissed.
IHG has previously attracted activist investors including Nelson Peltz, best known for forcing Cadbury into the arms of Kraft, and the Barclay brothers, who own the Daily Telegraph.
Van Vlissingen, whose fortune is estimated at €1.6 billion, told The Times that he had held 2% of IHG for the past three or four years, but that this week he had acquired enough shares to lift it past the 3% level at which holdings must be declared.
He had bought the shares because there was an under-supply of four and five-star hotels, particularly in India and China, he said.
He also believed that the shift towards online bookings would lead to superior growth for the bigger groups, including IHG.
“This is an industry where further consolidation will happen,” he was reported as saying. “We are long-term investors and this is a broadening of our travel activities.”
The van Vlissingens own SHV Holdings, the biggest family company in the Netherlands, but he opted to go it alone by founding BCD in 1975.
The group’s travel unit is one of the world’s biggest business c travel companies, and its other subsidiaries are in online travel, parking and airline tickets.
The travel magnate has gradually built a stake of 24% in rival Hogg Robinson Group since 2008, but has consistently played down talk of a bid.
“Our stake is a defensive move,” he said last night. “If there is a takeover bid or something happens, then it gives us a seat at the table.”