Hyatt buys Mr & Mrs Smith boutique hotel platform, hotels to leave IHG?

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• Neil Langley says:

  28 Apr28 April 12:48

  Do we expect existing bookings to be honoured?

  • Rob says:

    28 Apr28 April 12:51

    Reward nights after the completion date – no

    Cash nights after the completion date – yes, but you won’t earn IHG points or elite credit (you may or not earn Hyatt points and credit depending on when that bit goes live)

    • meta says:

      28 Apr28 April 13:18

      We do not know how Mr&Mrs Smith properties will work with IHG yet. It will also depend on the what kind of contract Mr&Mrs Smith has with IHG especially given no reference in the statement.

      Since there is no exact completion date (it’s a planned acquisition as per press release), the deal can still fall through. They will now need to do due dilligence. These things also get pushed.

      • Rob says:

        28 Apr28 April 13:50

        Due diligence on this sort of thing can be done in a day or two if you’re in a hurry. It’s an asset lite business. One person working alone could do it in a week.

        If you were buying HfP one person could do the DD before lunch.

        In my banking days we once sent someone to Australia for one day to check that a factory owned by a business we were buying physically existed. That’s proper due diligence …

        • meta says:

          28 Apr28 April 14:04

          But it’s obviously not going to be done in a day given that the completion date is planned for late 2023. Legal due dilligence takes longer than that and will most certainly not be done in a day.

        • Daniel says:

          28 Apr28 April 14:42

          Yes I’m afraid that legal due diligence does not take a day… Just because a company is ‘asset lite’ does not mean there are no checks to do.

        • Rob says:

          28 Apr28 April 14:45

          Of course. But those would have been done on announcement day.

          Is Hyatt going to review all 1,500 hotel contracts? No. It will do a representative sample. The key issue would be the IHG contract plus a service agreement for Tamara.

        • meta says:

          28 Apr28 April 22:04

          @Rob this will depend on the lawyers that Hyatt engages. Some are more thorough than others.

        • Thywillbedone says:

          29 Apr29 April 06:08

          Getting the requisite information to make an firm offer and actual deal due diligence are/should be two very different things …

        • JandeW says:

          29 Apr29 April 10:01

          When buying a sugar mill in Kazakhstan back in the early 90’s, our due diligence did not prepare us for the 8,000 sow pig farm that came with the mill!!

        • WaynedP says:

          29 Apr29 April 20:46

          Punishingly far to travel for one day, poor sod.

• LostInAsia says:

  28 Apr28 April 13:02

  I stayed at a Mr & Mrs Smith property in Siem Reap, Cambodia. It was by far the worst hotel I’ve ever encountered.

  Others I’ve used have all had very poor customer service. They don’t give service, they act as if you should consider yourself lucky to be granted the privilege of entering their beloved property.

  No loss.

  • Vit says:

    28 Apr28 April 13:40

    That’s sad to hear. Hopefully the new Hyatt management will change things. In general, it is not normally the case, hospitality wise, for South East Asia,.

• Azza says:

  28 Apr28 April 13:06

  Well this is interesting isn’t it.

  Be interesting to see how many properties cross over on Mr & Mrs Smith and SLH.

  And there are some brands available through Mr & Mrs Smith platform whom I imagine would never allow award bookings to be made like Rosewood and Aman.

  • meta says:

    28 Apr28 April 13:21

    Mr&Mrs Smith does not own properties. They might choose to leave the Mr&Mrs Smith marketing platform now that Hyatt has plans to acquire them.

    • Azza says:

      28 Apr28 April 13:29

      Yeah I know they don’t but some properties might still want to make themselves available via the platform but just not for award nights.

• Richie says:

  28 Apr28 April 13:14

  Would Hyatt notice if a Mr & Mrs Lohan booking platform appeared?

  • Lady London says:

    28 Apr28 April 17:09

    It will be in the contract. Normally earn out (I think this is what Rob is calling a service agreement) and non-compete, at least for a period.

  • JDB says:

    29 Apr29 April 00:18

    Mrs Lohan will remain as CEO of Mr & Mrs Smith within the Hyatt group.

• Peter K says:

  28 Apr28 April 13:19

  I’ve stayed at a couple of Mr&Mrs Smith properties using IHG points. One was a decent redemption as there were no other chain hotels and the non-chains were poor quality.

  The other was a boutique hotel in South Wales which was an exceptional stay. I’ll miss the tie-up.

• Richard Hall says:

  28 Apr28 April 13:57

  Liked have additional choices that were cookie cut hotels in the IHG chain. Got a reward stay at the end of may in the UK and a paid stay in June crossing into July. Will see what happens there

• Irons80 says:

  28 Apr28 April 14:14

  To be honest, this news is meh – the only time I have considered Mr&Mrs through IHG was for Stockholm and the rate on it was much higher than on Hotels.com, so I was happy to forgo some points for the saving and 10% rebate!

• Save East Coast Rewards says:

  28 Apr28 April 14:19

  Personally I think rewards bookings will be honoured. This isn’t hotels leaving a chain, this is a chain getting bought by another operator. The chain as it is will still have obligations under its contract with IHG.

  I’d think of it more like Diamond Club. When BA bought bmi it still had contractual obligations of bmi until these deals could be wound up. So you could still use diamond club to book Star Alliance or Virgin initially then gradually those partnerships disappeared and the only thing you could do with Diamond Club miles was to transfer them to BA.

  I’d see something like this happening:
  The takeover date is confirmed. Hyatt will announce ending of IHG partnership but existing bookings honoured.

  • meta says:

    28 Apr28 April 17:46

    Yes, you might be right. When I stayed at Mr&Mrs Smith property in January they did not know that I paid with IHG points. In fact they noted that I paid through Mr&Mrs Smith during check-in.

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