Morgans Hotels Group has delayed its consideration of sbe’s $82 million acquisition bid to assess an unsolicited takeover proposal from a company identified as Bidder V in SEC filings. The bid cited a potentially new financing source that would provide up to $500 million to complete the acquisition for $2.75 per share, or $100.2 million.
Stockholders for Morgans were said to have met last week to discuss the rival deal but have not changed its recommendation of going ahead with the proposed merge with sbe. According to Morgans’ SEC filings, Bidder V submitted the proposal as early as July 18. Sbe had previously reached an agreement with Morgans in May for a cash-only deal at $2.25 per share.
In June SEC filings, Morgans showed that the brand had only $46 million in cash by the end of 2015 and forecasted negative generation for 2016 and 2017.