The luxury goods conglomerate LVMH — Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy — has bought Belmond, better known as the Orient Express Hotels, for $3.2 billion. The deal includes the Belmond debt plus its 46-strong worldwide collection of old luxury hotels, Burmese cruise boats and exotic railway services.
In Peru, the collection includes the Machu Picchu Sanctuary Lodge, Hotel Monasterio and two other hotels in the Cusco area plus Las Casitas in the Colca Canyon and the Miraflores Park hotel in Lima.
Also in the package are the railway companies PeruRail and Ferrocarril Transandino, a duo that has been the Belmond group’s biggest money-maker worldwide, carrying passengers to and from Machu Picchu with revenues of $200mn per year, and providing mineral transport services centered on Arequipa, where one of its clients is the Cerro Verde copper mine, one of the world’s largest.
The LVMH- Belmond agreement was announced in December 2018, with shareholders approving the transaction in February this year. The closing was announced today.
Class A shareholders received $25 per share in cash, according to the LVMH announcement, and Class A common shares will no longer be quoted on the New York stock exchange.
LVMH owns the fashion brands of Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior, as well as several hotels.
Related article: Cashing Out of Machu Picchu
