Motel 168 Not So Hot, 7 Days Finds New Guest 莫泰168不再炙手可热，7天连锁找到了新客户

By newsdoug on April 14, 2011

UPDATE: Since first posting this, 7 Days has informed me that, indeed, the $65 million investment from Warburg was old news, coming in 2008. That would explain the strangeness of this investment if it had been a new one, which I already noted below

There’s a couple of interesting news bits coming from the budget hotel world that each could have interesting implications for the fast growing sector. In the bigger of the two, Morgan Stanley looks like it may abort the sale of its 60 percent stake in Shanghai Motel Management, operator of the Motel 168 chain, after it failed to get the kind of frothy bids it was seeking from a list of suitors that included China’s top two operators, Home Inn (Nasdaq: HMIN) and China Lodging Group (Nasdaq: HTHT), and French giant Accor. (English story) It’s been pretty clear all along that Morgan Stanley was hyping this deal through repeated unsourced leaks, hoping it could get as much as $1 billion for a stake that certainly wasn’t worth nearly that much. In the second piece of news, Guangzhou-based operator 7 Days (NYSE: SVN) has received a somewhat strange investment of $65 million, according to a Chinese media report (English article) Why a company with a $900 million market cap would want such a small private investment seems odd, but maybe it’s related to the investors, which in this case happen to include Warburg Pincus. With an worldly partner like that at the lodge, look for some interesting developments from this relatively low-key budget player in the months ahead.

Bottom line: Morgan Stanley will quietly sell its China budget hotel stake for well below its original $1 billion asking price, while interesting days await the 7 Days chain after a Warburg Pincus investment.

更新：登了这个文章后，7天通知我Warburg的投资是旧闻，来在2008年。这样会解释我写的奇怪如果这投资是新的。

经济型酒店业有两则有趣的新闻，每条都可能给这个快速发展的行业带来有趣的影响。第一条新闻，看起来摩根士丹利可能会放弃出售持有的上海莫泰酒店管理有限公司60%的股权，因它并未从竞标者中得到有力报价。上海莫泰是经济型连锁酒店“莫泰168”的运营商。很明显，大摩一直都在试图通过所谓的消息人士来炒作这一交易，以期能以10亿美元将其股权售出。另一条新闻是，据中国媒体报导，总部位於广州的7天连锁酒店获得了6,500万美元的奇怪注资。一家拥有9亿美元市值的企业却要这麽一小笔私人投资似乎很奇怪，但或许这与此事的投资人有关，此事牵涉到了美国华平投资集团(Warburg Pincus)。有了这麽一个精明的合作夥伴，相信未来数月，这个相对低调的经济型酒店会有一些有趣进展。

一句话：摩根士丹利将以远低於其10亿美元的报价悄悄卖出莫泰股权，而有了美国华平的投资，7天连锁酒店未来料有有趣进展。