The latest asset sell-off as part of the HNA Group's ongoing deleveraging programme is the hotel company, Radisson Holdings, which is being acquired by Jin Jiang International Holdings for around US$2 billion.
A consortium led by Jin Jiang has initially agreed with Radisson Hospitality Inc to buy 51.15% of the outstanding shares of Radisson Hospitality AB, which is listed on Nasdaq Stockholm. The agreed price is 35 Swedish crowns ($3.87) per share, or around 3 billion Swedish crowns ($332 million).
Jin Jiang, which is state owned and headquartered in Shanghai, also owns 12.3% of France's Accor, a company that has resisted efforts by Jin Jiang to increase its stake and influence.
However, the Jin Jiang-led consortium will also buy another 18.5% stake in Radisson Hospitality, which HNA Sweden has pledged and transferred to a lender as security for a loan, said the companies involved.
After this process has completed, the Jin Jiang-led consortium is then required under Swedish rules to launch a mandatory public tender offer for the remaining outstanding shares in the listed company.
Radisson's new suitors, Jin Jiang, is mainly engaged in hotel management and investment, tourist services and transport and logistics, and is one of the world's ten largest hotel groups
Just two years ago, in 2016, HNA acquired 100% of Radisson Hotel Group, when the company traded under the name Carlson Hotels. The deal included Carlson's 51.3% stake Rezidor Hotel AB, which was recently renamed to Radisson Hospitality, following the rebrand of Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group to Radisson Hotel Group.
As recently as June 27, Radisson Hotel Group announced at its 2018 Asia Pacific Business Conference in Batam, Indonesia, its new strategic partnership with Hainan Airlines, owned by HNA Group.
HNA-owned Hainan Airlines also announced on 10 August that it has completed the sale of its remaining stake in Brazilian airline Azul in a deal that netted it $306.25 million after deducting underwriting fees. The buyers were a number of U.S. institutional investors who were not connected to Hainan Airlines.
Azul is the largest airline in Brazil by number of cities served, offers 739 daily flights to 106 destinations, and an operating fleet of 120 aircraft.
In late June, Azul announced that Hainan Airlines was selling 19,379,335 American depositary shares, or ADS, of Azul in the United States and elsewhere outside of Brazil. Each ADS represents three preferred shares of Azul. The offering represented all of Hainan's stake in Azul.
The offering price was US$16.15 per ADS and Hainan received net proceeds of US$ 306,247,270.65, before expenses. The ADSs are listed on the New York Stock Exchange and the preferred shares are listed on the Level 2 (Nível 2) segment of the Sao Paulo Stock Exchange.
No other shareholder of Azul sold in the offering. None of the ADS being offered were sold by Azul and Azul did not receive any proceeds from the offering, except for reimbursement of certain expenses incurred by Azul in connection with the offering. This offering did not have any dilution effect on Azul's current shareholders.
Already in April HNA sold a 4% stake in Azul to the United Continental Holdings group for $138.3 million.
