China’s HNA Group agrees to buy Swiss Gategroup for US$1.50bn

Having agreed to buy the international luggage and cargo handler Swissport International last July for US$2.8bn, the Chinese conglomerate HNA Group Co., Ltd., headquartered in Haikou, China, has now agreed to buy a second Swiss company, Gategroup Holding AG, the world’s second-largest airline catering company, for US$1.5 billion.
The deal reflects a 17% premium on Gategroup’s share price of CHF43.90 (US$46.10) at close of trading on Friday, which rose sharply today to CHF52.50 (US$55.12) at the close of trading.
Gategroup, headquartered at Zurich Airport, is responsible for providing catering, hospitality, provisioning and logistics across the airline industry and during its growth has acquired such companies as Aero-Chef, SAS Service Partner, VARIG Kitchens, British Airways Kitchens and Iber-Swiss.
Established in 2000 as the parent company of China’s Hainan Airlines, HNA now operates or has shareholdings in over 12 airlines aside from Hainan Airlines, including a 48% stake in France’s second-largest airline Aigle Azur and 23.7% of Azul Brazilian Airlines. It also owns 16 airports across China and has interests in real estate and the retailing industry, financial services and investment banking, tourism, shipbuilding, cargo handling and logistics. In February this year, in what will become the largest takeover by a Chinese company of a US information technology company, HNA agreed to pay US$6bn for Ingram Micro Inc.