Accor Hotels Shareholders Approve Demerger

On Tuesday, the shareholders of Accor SA, the owner of Accor Hospitality and Accor Services, voted to proceed with the demerger of the group into 2 separate companies. The services or vouchers business, which sells gift and meal vouchers to human resources departments looking to distribute employee benefits, will start trading Friday under the new Edenred name.

Gilles Pelisson, the chief executive of Accor, said that this was an old idea, and they have regularly asked themselves if they should split the company or not. The board of directors said last year that a split made sense, which ended years of speculation. Some had questioned if it made sense to have such different companies as part of the same group.

Pelisson said that both of the businesses are big enough now to exist independently. He thanked the 2 teams for their hard work and dedication in making the split a success. They are proud to have created 2 international, industry-leading champions, he added, and he wishes Edenred the very best of success with its new chief executive Jacques Stern and his team.

Stern has told shareholders that this year will still be hard. Despite this, he will propose a dividend payout ratio for the company that is more than the average of CAC-40 businesses, he added.

The demerger comes during a time when both of the companies are struggling because of the worldwide recession. Accor Hospitality has been damaged by having to cut back on employee travel. Accor Services has been hit with high unemployment throughout Europe, as well as Latin America’s interest rates being low. The services business puts cash advanced by clients into short-term investments.