Ratan Tata makes bid for hotel group

Ratan Tata is not easing gently towards retirement.

Two months before he relinquishes the reins at India's largest business house, the Tata Group's Indian Hotels Co Ltd has made an unsolicited and unexpected $1.2 billion bid for luxury hotel group Orient-Express Hotels Ltd

The offer, priced at a 40 percent premium, may prove the final bold move for Tata, who has built the software-to-steel conglomerate into the country's biggest business house through a series of large overseas deals, not all of them successful.

Investors greeted the Orient-Express offer with wariness, pushing Indian Hotels shares down 5.5 percent on Friday. Indian Hotels would also assume Orient-Express debt, which stood at $530 million on June 30.

Shares in Bermuda-headquartered Orient-Express fell back 0.7 percent in New York on Friday to $10.90, well shy of Indian Hotels' bid of $12.63 per share.

The shares rose as much as 41 percent on Thursday after the bid was announced, closing at $11.05, up 22.5 percent.

Indian Hotels was rebuffed in an attempt to strike an alliance with Orient-Express in 2007, and again in August.

"Generally, acquisitions for Indian Hotels have not been rewarding for the company," said Niraj Mansingka, an analyst with Edelweiss Capital in Mumbai.

Indian Hotels has bought several overseas properties, including the Pierre in New York, but they have not tended to perform as well as its domestic operations, which include its flagship Taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai.

Orient-Express' global portfolio includes the Hotel Cipriani in Venice and the 21 Club in New York, but its heavy exposure to the sluggish European economy has crimped growth.

Indian Hotels rejected the characterisation of Thursday's bid as hostile, even though it was uninvited and Orient-Express had as recently as August rejected an approach for what Indian Hotels said was a "significant" stake in the company.

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