Bass, Sol Melia Bid For Granada Hotels

LONDON Bass Plc and Millennium & Copthorne Plc are considering a joint 3 billion pound ($4.3 billion) bid for the hotel chains put up for sale by Granada Compass Plc, the Sunday Business newspaper reported, without citing its source. Bass wants to acquire the Le Meridien chain and convert some hotels into its own Inter-Continental brand. Millennium & Copthorne would keep the rest of the properties in the chain. The two companies are less interested in the Posthouse and Heritage chains, which are also being sold by Granada, the paper said. Separately, Sol Melia SA, the largest hotel chain in the Spanish-speaking world, has bid 2.65 billion pounds for the Meridien and Posthouse chains, The Observer newspaper reported, citing an unidentified industry source. Last week, Accor SA said it is not interested in bidding for any of the chains after walking away from talks with Granada in October. (12/3/00) SOURCE: Bloomberg News