Four Seasons

**Four Seasons Hotels Limited**, trading as **Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts**, is a Canadian international luxury hospitality company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Four Seasons operates more than 100 hotels worldwide. Since 2006, Bill Gates (through Cascade Investment) and Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal have been majority owners of the company.

## History

Canadian businessman Isadore Sharp founded Four Seasons in 1960. While a young architect working for his father, Sharp designed a motel for a family friend; its success motivated him to try creating his own hotel. He bought a large parcel of land in a run-down area of Toronto and planned a stopover for business travelers; the **Four Seasons Motor Hotel** opened in 1961.

Four Seasons built more hotels, including the 1963 Inn on the Park, a $4 million two-story resort hotel in suburban Toronto that housed Canada's first discothèque.

Upscale luxury became part of the brand when the company expanded to London. When a developer approached Four Seasons about building a hotel in London, Sharp planned it to compete with the city's old-world, elite hotels, such as Claridge's and The Connaught. The hotel opened in 1970.

In 1974, cost overruns at the Four Seasons Hotel Vancouver nearly led the company into bankruptcy. As a result, the company began shifting to its current, management-only business model, eliminating costs associated with buying land and buildings. The company went public in 1986. In the 1990s, Four Seasons and Ritz-Carlton began the direct competition, with Ritz-Carlton emphasizing a uniform look while Four Seasons emphasized local architecture and styles with uniform service; in the end, Four Seasons gained market share.

Built-in 1986, Four Seasons Hotel Austin is a nine-story hotel on 2.3 acres of land on the Lady Bird Lake's north shore. In 1997, Four Seasons Hotel Austin became the first hotel to have "a high-speed wireless Internet network" after Wayport, Inc. set it up there for testing wireless Internet networks. The hotel hosted Queen Elizabeth II in 1991 when she visited Texas. It was acquired by Anbang Insurance Group from the Blackstone Group for $359.7 million in 2016.

Economic downturns in the early and mid-2000s affected the company. When the September 11 attacks caused the collapse of the travel industry, Four Seasons refused to cut room prices in order to preserve the perceived value of the brand, which caused tension with property owners who were losing money. The company recovered, and in 2007 it agreed to a buyout by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia for $3.8 billion. The pair own 95 percent of the company, in equal shares, and Sharp owns the rest.

Challenges returned again during the financial crisis of 2007–2010. The company made the first corporate layoffs in its history, cutting 10% of its Toronto workforce. In April 2010, after a year-long dispute with Broadreach Capital Partners and Maritz, Wolff & Co., owners of the Aviara resort near San Diego, an arbitration panel ruled that, while both parties contributed to the demise of the business relationship, Four Seasons had not violated its management agreement. The arbitrators ordered Broadreach to pay Four Seasons to terminate the contract." The resort is no longer a Four Seasons.

Four Seasons has continued to add more hotels and resorts to its portfolio, notably in China. It opened a new hotel in Hangzhou in 2010 and Guangzhou, Beijing, and a second property in Shanghai in 2012. In India, it has one hotel in Mumbai. In 2013, it opened its first hotel in Russia in the Lobanov-Rostovsky Palace in St. Petersburg and later opened a second hotel in Moscow. In Indonesia, it has one hotel in Jakarta and another two in Bali.

In October 2012, Four Seasons opened a new 259 room Toronto hotel in Yorkville, designed by internationally known design firm Yabu Pushelberg. The hotel includes an upscale restaurant led by celebrity chef Daniel Boulud. It was hailed by *The Globe and Mail* as "the renewal of an iconic Canadian brand in its hometown". The penthouse was bought by entrepreneur Robert Österlund (founder of Xacti, LLC, and Inbox.com) for a Canadian record price of over $28 million.