Pan American Airways founder Juan Trippe established the InterContinental brand as a division of PanAm and opened the first hotel in Belém, Brazil in 1946. On August 19, 1981, PanAm sold holding company InterContinental Hotels Corporation (IHC) to UK-based Grand Metropolitan for $500 million. As GrandMet focused its core business and expanded into fast food through the purchase of Burger King, it sold IHC to Japanese-based Saison Group in 1988.[7]
In March 1998, Saison Group sold IHC to British brewery Bass, which traces its roots back to 1777, when William Bass established the Bass Brewery in Burton-upon-Trent. In 1988, in reaction to the British government limiting the number of pubs which brewers could directly own, Bass invested in the expansion of its small line of hotels. In 2000, Bass sold its brewing assets (and the rights to the Bass name) to the major Belgian brewer Interbrew for £2.3 billion and changed its name to Six Continents.[7]
In 2003, the independent corporation InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) was created after Six Continents split into two companies: Mitchells & Butlers took control of the restaurant assets[8] and IHG focusing on hotels and soft drinks.[7] IHG retained Britvic, the soft drinks division, until December 2005 when it sold its interest in the company by an initial public offering.[9] In April/May 2014 the company reportedly rejected a $10 billion takeover bid from an unknown suitor, believed to be Starwood.[10]