Four Seasons Hotels

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Four Seasons Hotels Inc.

Type	Public (NYSE: FS)
Founded	1960
Headquarters	Toronto, Canada
Key people	Isadore Sharp, Chairman & CEO Wolf H. Hengst, President Hotel Operations Kathleen Taylor, President Business Operations
Industry	hospitality, tourism
Website	www.fourseasons.com

A Four Seasons Hotel underneath the GLG Grand in Atlanta, Georgia.

Four Seasons Hotels, Inc. is a Canadian-based luxury hotel chain consisting of hotels and resorts aimed at the higher end of the accommodation market. It is considered among the best luxury hotels worldwide, according to Travel and Leisure magazine and Zagat Guide and is also a AAA five diamond hotel chain, one of only a few in the world.

1 Business
2 Operation
3 Footnotes
4 See also
5 External link

[edit] Business

Four Seasons is a publicly traded corporation headquartered in Toronto, Canada. Isadore (“Issy”) Sharp founded the company in 1960 and opened the first Four Seasons Hotel on Jarvis Street in downtown Toronto in 1961. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has a substantial holding in the company along with Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia. On November 6, 2006, Bill Gates, through his holding company Cascades Investment LLC, and Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal made an offer to take the company private for US$3.4 billion (excluding debt).^[1]^[2]

[edit] Operation

Four Seasons Hotels operates a residential program called the Residence Club that involves the sale of villas, penthouses and the like within select Four Seasons properties as private properties. The company currently operates 70 properties globally.

On June 19, 2002 the Canadian Opera Company announced Four Seasons Hotels as the naming donor for the COC's new Opera House, the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, located in Toronto, Canada. As of mid- 2006 Prince Al-Waleed of Saudi Arabia and Microsoft's Bill Gates have formed a partnership to buy the whole chain of luxury hotels.