TORONTO, Dec. 2 (UPI) -- Toronto's Fairmont Hotels & Resorts Inc. Friday rejected a proposed hostile takeover by agencies of New York shareholder activist Carl Icahn.
Icahn holds about 9.3 percent of Fairmont and said Friday he planned to seek to gain 51 percent of outstanding shares at $40 per share. At that price buying the extra 41.7 percent would cost him $1.208 billion.
News of the offer sent Fairmont shares up in mid-afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange by nearly 5 percent to $40.65, a 52-week high.
At Icahn's proposed $40 per share, Fairmont would be valued at $2.898 billion.
Fairmont's chief executive, William R. Fatt, said Icahn's planned offer was "coercive" and "unfair" because he would get control of the company "without paying a takeover premium to all shareholders."
He also said the proposed bid "apparently will not comply with our shareholder rights plan, which our shareholders have approved as the basis for a fair and appropriate bid process."
Fairmont owns 88 luxury and first-class properties with about 33,000 guestrooms in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Bermuda, Barbados, Britain, Monaco, Kenya and the United Arab Emirates.
