Home Inns Finds Room at Motel168 After All 如家最终收购莫泰168

By newsdoug on May 27, 2011

Morgan Stanley finds room for Home Inns at Motel 168 As I expected, just a month after pulling its 60 percent stake in the operator of the Motel 168 chain from the market (previous post) due to low offers, Morgan Stanley has quietly put the stake back on the market and appears close to finding a buyer in previous bidder Home Inns (Nasdaq: HMIN), foreign media are reporting. (English article) Also not surprisingly, this time around Home Inns’ bid is expected to value Motel 168 at about $500 million, or about half the figure the Morgan Stanley was leaking to the media the last time around. So what’s happened here? Clearly Morgan Stanley was never going to get the valuation it was seeking, considering Home Inns, the industry leader, is only valued at $1.5 billion itself and other big players like China Lodging (Nasdaq: HTHT) and 7 Days (NYSE: SVN) are valued around $1 billion each. The other big development is that since last month, Home Inns and 7 Days have both reported weak quarterly earnings, showing the market is hurting in part due to softness in Shanghai following the end of the World Expo. (previous post) Clearly Morgan Stanley wants to get rid of this investment, which is playing to Home Inns’ advantage as it should get the stake at a significant discount to what Morgan Stanley was seeking. But all that doesn’t change the fact that the budget hotel market is suffering from a slowdown, which is likely to continue for at least the next year as Expo effects linger and Beijing maintains its tight monetary policy, keeping Chinese consumers at home.

Bottom line: Home Inns’ imminent purchase of a controlling stake of Motel 168 should give it a nice short-term lift, but recovery for the sluggish budget hotel sector is still a year away.

摩根士丹利一个月前计划出售所持上海莫泰168连锁酒店60%的股权，但因不满接盘者报价太低而作罢，而正如我之前预料的那样，大摩仅一个月後又悄然带着这一交易重返市场，且与如家<HMIN.O>的股权交易已接近达成。一点也不奇怪还有，如家对莫泰168的估值为5亿美元左右，仅仅是大摩上次透露给媒体的价格的一半。那麽这其中到底发生了什麽呢？很明显，大摩从未打算得到他们想要的价格，原因是，作为业界领头羊的如家，其自身估值也仅为15亿美元，而汉庭连锁酒店集团<HTHT.O>、7天连锁酒店<SVN.N>等其他主要经济型酒店其估值分别也只有10亿美元左右。另一个重大进展是，自上月以来，如家和7天连锁酒店的季度营收报告均很疲软，说明市场元气受损，部分由於世博会结束对上海市场带来的疲软。很明显，大摩希望甩掉这笔投资，而这笔投资正好能发挥如家的优势，如家便以非常大的折扣价得到了这部分股权。但所有这些都不能改变一个事实，即经济型连锁酒店市场正遭遇发展缓慢的局面，而这一态势很可能至少会绵延至明年，因世博会效应仍存，而中国政府会继续维持其紧缩的货币政策，消费者出行旅游会减少。

一句话：如家即将收购莫泰控股权一事应该会有短期提振效应，但经济型酒店业的复苏至少得等一年以後。

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