SWITZERLAND. RRJ Capital has agreed to purchase all outstanding shares in world airline catering and onboard retail leader gategroup Holding from China’s HNA Group.
gategroup Holding is the world’s largest provider of such services. Through the transaction, RRJ Capital will become gategroup’s sole shareholder. Singaporean sovereign wealth fund Temasek will remain invested in gategroup through a mandatory exchangeable bond.
Completion is expected in April.
RRJ Capital is an investment firm which focuses on long term private equity investments. It manages approximately US$11 billion of funds, with portfolio companies in Asia, Australia, Europe and USA. RRJ is based in Singapore and Hong Kong. Temasek is a global investment company headquartered in Singapore, which owns a S$308 billion (US$227 billion) portfolio.
HNA completed the acquisition of gategroup in December 2016 after announcing an all-cash takeover offer in April that year. However, the Chinese transport-to-leisure powerhouse was forced to change its investment plans as its debt burden spiralled. In March 2018, gategroup announced that its then 100% owner HNA Aviation (Hong Kong) Airline Catering Holding Co. Ltd), intended to sell the majority of its holdings in the company. The agreement announced today will see that divestment completed.
Richard Ong, Founder and Chairman of the RRJ Capital and a member of gategroup’s Board of Directors said: “Today marks another milestone for RRJ Capital and Temasek and is a natural next step following from our initial investment in the company in 2018. Over the past three years gategroup has, thanks to its strong management team, made swift progress on the implementation of their successful Gateway 2020 Strategy. We look forward to supporting their growth aspirations.”
gategroup CEO Xavier Rossinyol said, “We are absolutely delighted to work with RRJ Capital and Temasek going forward as they contribute their expertise, network and growth track record to gategroup.
“We are pleased that two reputed global investors have recognised the value in gategroup and our future growth potential. gategroup has made significant progress thanks to the excellent support of the HNA Group leadership team and the guidance of Chairman Adam Tan.
“We are grateful for their support in progressing our Gateway 2020 strategy which we defined in 2015 and has allowed us to achieve exceptional performance for the fourth consecutive year, including an all-time high in revenue and EBITDA in 2018.”
