Easy Food will issue around 432 million shares at RMB5.55 per share to HNA Tourism and Caissa Sega, in exchange for the companies' respective holding of 51% and 49% of HNA's subsidiary Caissa Touristic in a deal worth an estimated 2.4 billion（approx： US$388 million）.
After this transaction, Hainan Group will still be publicly listed Easy Food's major shareholder effectively making a Easy Food a listed shell company for Caissa Touristic in compliance with state regulations.
Caissa Touristic was established in December 21, 2012 with HNA Tourism as its major shareholder. It is a leading comprehensive outbound tourism operator in China that mainly targets official, corporate and individual clients. It recorded an annual profit of RMB11.2 million（approx： US$1.8 million）, RMB47.3 million（approx： US$7.6 million）and RMB106 million（approx： US$17 million）in 2012, 2013 and 2014 consecutively.
Easy Food is a listed airlines and railway catering company. After this deal, it will change business direction and enter the high-potential tourism market through Caissa Touristic to boost its profit and growth. Meanwhile it will restructure and leverage HNA Tourism’s distribution in aviation, operations, finance, tourism and logistics to become a leading outbound tourism industry chain supplier.
Amid rapid market growth and fierce competition, Caissa Touristic’s use of a listed shell company is a necessary move. The development of OTAs has shaken up the industry’s distribution and made market trends extremely volatile. Caissa Touristic has the advantages of an established market base. It is also introducing innovative tactics such as setting up experiential showrooms to attract customers while it accelerates the pace of setting up branches.
Caissa Touristic has said it will raise additional funds of around RMB800 million （approx： US$129 million）after its incorporation with Easy Food . These funds will mainly be used for Caissa Touristic’s domestic marketing projects, its digitization and ecommerce platform upgrade project and its sports tourism and outdoor tourism projects.(Translation by David)
