EASYHOTEL'S billionaire founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou has bought £60,000 worth of shares in the company as he continues to blockade plans to take it private.
The value hotel chain is set to be taken over by property fund manager ICAMAP and real estate investor Ivanhoe Cambridge despite staunch opposition from the easyJet founder.
The bidding companies, working as a consortium under the banner of Citrus UK Bidco, have gained a majority stake in the company after taking over roughly 52 per cent of shares.
Earlier this month, the bidders confirmed the takeover attempt, which valued the group's shares at roughly £139 million, or 95p a share.
Sir Stelios dismissed the consortium's valuation of the company, describing them as trying to buy out shareholders "on the cheap".
He has said he will continue to buy up more shares and work alongside the company's majority owners but will not have it taken private for 95p a share.
ICAMAP and Ivanhoe Cambridge would need a 75 per cent stake in the company to take it private but are being thwarted by the billionaire, who has now raised his stake in EasyHotel to more than 27 per cent.
The founder said he could increase his stake to more than 30 per cent after the takeover panel confirmed he would not be required to bid for the whole company as is customary after the ownership threshold is passed.
If the consortium wishes to take the company private, it is understood it will have to wait six months before it can offer a higher bid to convince Sir Stelios to exit the company.
In a statement, Sir Stelios said: "I am delighted that ICAMAP and Ivanhoe Cambridge think that EasyHotel is such a great business that they want to invest big money to build more great value EasyHotels.
"Nobody would be happier when this brand goes from 50 hotels in operation and under construction now to say 150 in a few years.
"As with every listed share in the world and as a rational investor, I believe that there is a price to buy and a price to sell EasyHotel shares.
"At 95p, I am a buyer of shares and not a seller. Now we will all have to work together to grow the number of EasyHotels exponentially."
In 2018 EasyHotel opened its first property in Ireland, an 81-bedroom hotel in the 200-year-old Dax building in Belfast's Howard Street.
Representing an investment of £5 million by owners David Crowe and Kevin Baird, its opening last August had initially been in doubt following an issue surrounding current Northern Ireland legislation in relation to the minimum size for hotel bedrooms. But it eventually received its Tourism NI certification for operation.
