Dispute over Savoy sale

Dispute over Savoy sale

SAVOY HOTEL said its two main shareholders, Granada Group and the Wontner family, will have to decide how the proceeds are divided under a two-tier share structure once they sell the hotel group. Shares in Savoy, which owns London's Savoy, Claridge's, Connaught and Berkeley hotels, rose 255p, or 17 per cent, to 1750p on Friday after the company said it had received a number' of takeover approaches.

Granada, the leisure group, owns 68 per cent of the Savoy, though it controls only 42 per cent of voting rights; the remainder of the shares, and voting control, are held by the Wontner family. Wolfgang Winter, a Savoy spokesman, said the division of sale proceeds, "was very much a subject of discussion between Granada and the Wontners.'' Granada is insisting that the high voting shares should not command as big a share of the spoils as the Wontners believe they should. The dispute threatens to scupper any sale.