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00:00Hotel group Accor has been forced to lay off three quarters of its staff. Roughly two hundred and twenty thousand people due to the Corona virus pandemic the travel and tourism industry has been heavily hit by the outbreak. But the company says it has enough cash to withstand the crisis. Sebastian Basa is the CEO of A Core. Sebastian thank you very much for joining us. Your brand is very present here. It is very present around the world 5000 hotels. Those numbers are stunning in terms of the numbers of jobs that you've had to cut. Sebastião when we go to reopen of that number of layoffs do you fully expect to re-employ that number or will be a scaled process me through the reality of that number and what could potentially happen if you begin to reopen . Well you know seriously let's start who is son of optimism. I intend to rehire every one of them. We had to let go sir . Laughing Temporary leave. You're right. Over 200 thousand employees out of 300000 because that would tell us being closed as of the 1st of April. I don't know how long this crisis is going to last but I know you're going to see light at the end of the tunnel. I don't know whether we're going to be able to come back as strong as ever before. Likely not because of GDP recession. But I can tell you for a fact today we have over 3000 hotels being closed on a network of 5000. I intend to be up and every one of them. I intend to rehire every employees . And I just hope to the guest people are going to come back travelling and enjoying geographies and discover people and territories. By early this summer I could be dead wrong but I'm surely fighting for our core to survive. Surely it will. And for the hotel industry to come back and his feet . Sebastian great to speak to you this morning on the question then of the hotel industry and the travel industry coming back . You pointed to early summer. So let's sort of get a little bit more visibility from you in terms of bookings. What are you seeing on that front that's giving you hope that you might see some sort of a comeback for the industry by early summer. Well the only sign of hope we have. And again it could be very tiny is that out of all the reservations we had and we have to date booked for July and August less than 10 percent as of last night have been canceled. It doesn't mean people will show up. It just means I guess people are and have to be as optimistic as I am in terms of the epitome of being hopefully under control by then. And again I am not naive. I know we're probably gonna be fetching 25 30 percent occupancy as opposed to 75 percent. But I can tell you that I'm going to make everything to make sure my hotel will be open and ready to welcome any one of you. So. So that's basically the tone we have. And again it changes every day . Sebastian we wish you well with that with that aspiration as one of the strongest messages I think I've heard from any CEO on the network. Let's take China as the roadmap. China we understand is returning to some form of working life normalcy. What can you tell me about the business in China perhaps as it was you know managed you say is a very good example. As of two or three weeks ago we had a call. We have 25000 employees in China of 400 hotels to two and a half weeks ago 85 percent of that 25000 workforce was at home as of last night. The exact same number . Those 20000 plus people add to that back in the hotel and 90 percent of my hotel. Today we are up. Okay. Fetching small occupancy in the 10 12 20 percent depending on the location . That business is back slowly back recover including food and beverage by the way in our hotels. And one of our partners association's joint venture called WOZA which is the second largest operator in China. And he has obviously southern hotels . And I'm on the board of this company had been give me his number last night that he discloses and might get 90 percent of his hotel to their back reopened with close to 60 percent occupancy. Of course it is a very low budget segment. Of course 98 percent of his visitors are local Chinese. That is a good sign of indication that within a country who is being badly hit St.. Three weeks five weeks after the fact that city appeared to be being under control. Activity is back in some segment in the hotel space in China for sure . One thing that you've pointed to previously Sebastian is your relatively strong balance sheet relative to peers. I wonder as we sort of look past the crisis that we're in right now as we have been doing for a lot of this conversation. Could your relatively strong balance sheet create any opportunities for consolidation post crisis. Well you know it does. He does one thing for us thanks to this I can sleep at night. I am busy all day 14 hours trying to look out to all my employees being for a laugh to make sure they have medical assistant that I can actually assist them. If they have any financial individual distress which we've been doing. We set aside some 25 percent of the dividend on paid. I'm obviously looking to my owners but you correct having over 2.5 billion euros of cash on our court balance sheet permits me to weather the storm and to basically handle a long crisis I hope is going to be much shorter than I was just said. But indeed that makes a huge difference in our cause ability to basically face a wave and not to be run over . And thanks God we have this under our belt . Sebastian you talk about the strength of the balance sheet there . Can you just clarify for us then. How do you tapped any credit lines or what is it that could cause you to have to tap credit lines on a scale of what is available to you. Well what's been what's been happening. We have a billion to credit line a billion to euros which we haven't drawn non necessities since we have this 2.5 billion of existing cash of immediate use if you want it. We of course like my peers we have being getting getting release from the financial holder of that credit line all just commercial banks on trying to get relief on the 2020 covenant. All those a ratio of 25 times debt to EBITDA . That has been obtained. So if we were to do it on line because we of absent of the BDA then we have to ability to do it over the next 12 months or so. But again as of this mean I don't intend to draw on the line. We have no necessity for it . Yeah. And Sebastian in previous interviews you've said as well that you don't think you will need French government help. But is that something you would rule out if things took a turn for the worse. Well you know in today's circumstances I don't rule out of everything. There's no taboo on any decisions. What . So when you captain at the helm what you do is you first get as much information as you could from your local country heads from national health authorities from government agencies. You look after you make the harsh tough decision on trying to cut costs since you have no business revenues and then you basically make sure you prepare for the rebound. If and when they were going to happen and I can tell you for a fact it will happen. The only thing that this few of us we don't know is when. But of course that hotel industry on the medium to long term has the exact same benefit it had for the last 50 to 60 years. So I'm not preparing for the rebound as of yet this minute. But of course I'm thinking of it as sort of my time. But in the meantime just be cautious be prudent be humble and know that what you facing you've never seen before. But that's okay. I mean I guess we have the backbone. We have a brilliant team and we have the time and we have the network. So I'm not in despair. If you're in despair you don't wake up in the morning running a company .

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Accor Plans to Rehire All Staff, Reopen Hotels After Virus

Accor SA Chief Executive Officer Sebastien Bazin says he’s fighting to make sure the hotel group’s operations are in shape when the rebound happens following the coronavirus pandemic. Accor has laid off 220,000 employees around the world due to the Covid-19 outbreak. Bazin says he intends to re-hire “everyone of them” and to re-open each hotel which has been closed. He speaks on "Bloomberg Daybreak: Europe." (Source: Bloomberg)

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