The India-based owner of the Pierre Hotel wants to hop on the Orient Express — again.
Shares of Orient-Express Hotels, whose properties include Manhattan’s 21 Club, surged 22.5 percent, to $11.05, yesterday after it got a buyout offer from Indian Hotels, which had tried unsuccessfully to acquire the company four years earlier.
The group, controlled by Indian billionaire Ratan Tata, is offering $1.42 billion, or $12.63 a share, for Orient-Express — a 40-percent premium to the day-earlier closing price.
Tata is making a second pass despite a rebuff that provoked a nasty dust-up the last time around when Orient-Express said being acquired by the Indian company would damage its brand.
This time Tata has brought on board former Orient-Express CEO Paul White, who resigned in July 2011 for personal reasons.
Tata also has cut a deal with former Orient-Express Chairman James Sherwood for certain purchasing rights to the company’s Cipriani Hotel in Venice.
Despite the preparations, Tata must still win the approval of Orient-Express for its offer. In a filing yesterday, Indian Hotels, which owns a 6.9-percent stake, said it’s taking its offer directly to shareholders after the failure of talks in August.
In 2008, Orient-Express had told Indian Hotels in a letter that its famous European railroad line, as well as its swanky hotels, including Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana Palace and Venice’s Cipriani Hotel, would make a bad fit for “your predominantly domestic Indian hotel chain and our global portfolio.”
The letter provoked cries of racism from India’s media and business moguls.
Officials at Orient-Express, based in Bermuda, couldn’t be reached for comment.