Deadline set for approval of US group's Cliveden bid
CLIVEDEN, the luxury hotel group, has given its shareholders until the end of July to approve the £42.8m bid from a US investment consortium which includes Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates.
But other groups are understood to be lining up to outbid the consortium, Destination Europe USA, which is 10% owned by Gates's investment group, Cascade.
John Tham, managing director of Cliveden, said that only one formal bid had been made but there had since been "considerable interest" from other companies.
It is understood that merchant bank Goldman Sachs is poised to launch a rival bid for the hotel group which owns the 37-bedroom Cliveden hotel in Buckinghamshire, the Royal Crescent hotel in Bath and the 25-bedroom Cliveden Town House in London.