“Hotels Lure Investors as Lodging Surpasses Offices” plus 3 more |
- Hotels Lure Investors as Lodging Surpasses Offices
- Hotels In Focus as REITs Ramp Up Acquisitions
- Chatham Lodging Trust Appoints Dennis M. Craven Chief Financial Officer
- Chatham Lodging Trust Appoints Dennis M. Craven CFO
| Hotels Lure Investors as Lodging Surpasses Offices Posted: 09 Sep 2010 04:00 PM PDT September 09, 2010, 6:23 PM EDT By Nadja Brandt (Updates with purchase by Pebblebrook in eighth paragraph.) Sept. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Hotel purchases are increasing faster than deals for office buildings, shopping centers or any other type of U.S. commercial property as rising occupancies and room rates boost the lodging industry. Sales of hotels jumped 136 percent in the first half of 2010 from a year earlier, the biggest gain among five commercial real estate categories tracked by New York-based Real Capital Analytics Inc. Those deals were based on transactions of at least $5 million and exclude hotels attached to casinos. A rebound in business and leisure travel is helping the U.S. lodging industry recover after last year's recession sent occupancies to a 30-year low. Hotels can boost rates quickly to take advantage of economic growth, while tenants at offices and retail properties tend to sign multiyear leases. "Hotels have already absorbed the downturn," said Richard Jones, executive vice president of acquisitions and operations at Atlanta-based developer Portman Holdings LLC. "It's not as evident what exactly the impact of this downturn is going to be for other commercial real estate." Owners of offices, shopping centers and other buildings with pre-recession leases are now signing agreements that will result in "significant cuts in rental income" said Jones, whose company develops lodging, office and retail properties. Income for hotels, meanwhile, is rising. Revenue per available room, or revpar, in the top 25 U.S. markets rose to $73.87 during the first half from $71.08 a year earlier, according to Smith Travel Research Inc. of Hendersonville, Tennessee. Occupancies climbed to 63 percent from 59 percent during the period, while remaining below 2008's 66 percent. Host Hotels, Pebblebrook Host Hotels & Resorts Inc., the owner of Ritz-Carltons in San Francisco and Phoenix, in July agreed to buy the W New York Union Square with partners including Istithmar World PJSC, and said it will purchase the Westin Chicago River North for about $165 million. The same month, Pebblebrook Hotel Trust bought the InterContinental Buckhead Atlanta hotel for $105 million in cash from InterContinental Hotels Group Plc. Pebblebrook today said it purchased the 183-room Hotel Monaco Washington D.C. for $74 million. The property will continue to be managed by Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant Group LLC. Hotels are inherently different from apartment buildings or other types of commercial real estate, said Lewis Wolff, co- chairman of Sunstone Hotel Investors Inc., an Aliso Viejo, California-based real estate investment trust. Because their space is rented by the night, not the month or year, hotels are a better investment than other properties during a boom and worse during a bust, he said. 'Operating Business' "It's not really real estate," Wolff said. "It's an operating business that's immediately affected by any economic change. Apartments are not daily operations. They are much closer to being actual real estate than hotels are." The vacancy rate at U.S. shopping centers rose to 10.9 percent in the second quarter from 10 percent a year earlier and near a record 11.1 percent set in 1990, Reis Inc. said in July. Office vacancies increased to 17.4 percent during the period, the highest level since 1993, according to the New York-based real estate research firm. Hotel occupancies and rates still have a long way go before recovering to their peak levels, said James Tisch, president and chief executive officer of New York-based Loews Corp., which operated 19 high-end hotels as of June. "Now we're obviously in a recovery, but in terms of revpar, we're still at 75 or 85 percent of the revpar of '07," Tisch said during an interview at Bloomberg's New York offices last month. "While the business has improved, it still has a long way to go before it gets back to where it was." Rising Profits Lodging companies have reported higher earnings, buoyed by rising demand in cities. Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc., the White Plains, New York-based owner of luxury brands including the St. Regis and W hotels, in July reported earnings that beat analysts' estimates and raised its revpar forecast. Marriott International Inc. of Bethesda, Maryland, the largest U.S. hotel chain, said second-quarter profit more than tripled and increased its full-year earnings forecast. In the meantime, profits are still falling for some retail and office landlords. General Growth Properties Inc., the Chicago-based U.S. mall owner planning to exit bankruptcy in October, said last month that second-quarter core funds from operations declined 17 percent after store rents dropped. Boston Properties Boston Properties Inc., the biggest U.S. office landlord by market value, said in July that second-quarter FFO slid 5.9 percent as rental revenue fell. The same month, SL Green Realty Corp., Manhattan's largest office owner, reported a slump in second-quarter FFO after New York tenants signed leases for an average of 4.4 percent less than previous rents. FFO is a measure of cash flow used by REITs and excludes interest, depreciation and other gains and losses. Sales of hotels totaled $3.19 billion in the first six months of 2010, up from $1.36 billion a year earlier, according to Real Capital Analytics. The 136 percent increase compares with an 82 percent gain in office transactions, a 51 percent advance in apartment deals, a 37 percent climb for retail properties and a 22 percent rise in industrial property sales. By dollar volume, hotel sales trailed other property types because they are a smaller portion of the market. Office transactions, totaling $11.9 billion, led deals by value, Real Capital data show. The volume of lodging transactions remains below the record reached in 2007. A total of $78.6 billion of hotels sold that year, Real Capital said. REIT Demand REITs may be the primary buyers of hotels as they come on the market because "they are fairly well capitalized and have access to attractively priced capital," said John Arabia, managing director at Green Street Advisors, a Newport Beach, California-based real estate research company. Sunstone last month acquired Miami Beach's Royal Palm hotel in a foreclosure auction for about $117 million. LaSalle Hotel Properties, a REIT that focuses on upscale lodging, last week said it bought its first hotel in San Francisco as well as two in Philadelphia for a total of $292.5 million. DiamondRock Hospitality Co. in May agreed to buy the 821-room Hilton Minneapolis for about $155.5 million, and Host Hotels said in July it's seeking deals in the U.S., Europe and Asia. "Publicly traded REITs will be a significant buyer of hotels over the next few years," Arabia said. "It's now REITs that will have their day in sun." --With assistance from Prashant Gopal in New York. Editors: Daniel Taub, Kara Wetzel To contact the reporter on this story: Nadja Brandt in Los Angeles at nbrandt@bloomberg.net. To contact the editor responsible for this story: Kara Wetzel at kwetzel@bloomberg.net. 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| Hotels In Focus as REITs Ramp Up Acquisitions Posted: 09 Sep 2010 07:54 AM PDT , On Thursday September 9, 2010, 10:54 am EDT The lodging sector took a hit during the recession, as consumers cut back on vacations and businesses pared travel budgets, but investors are diving back into the market in 2010. Sunstone Hotel Investors (NYSE: SHO - News) co-chairman Lewis Wolff explained to Bloomberg that hotels differ from other real estate investments because their rental terms are measured in nights rather than months or years. As such, the industry is better able to adapt to current pricing conditions, and hotel investor James Tisch said revenue per available room is at 75% or 85% of 2007 levels at 19 high-end properties operated by Loews Corp (NYSE: L - News), where he is president and CEO. The report indicates that real estate investment trusts (REITs) are the primary hotel buyers, and a number of recent acquisitions have taken place over the last several months. Sunstone, Diamondrock Hospitality (NYSE: DRH - News), LaSalle Hotel Properties (NYSE: LHO - News), and Host Hotels & Resorts (NYSE: HST - News) were all listed as buyers since this spring. As a whole, the Hotel REITs Index is lagging the S&P 500 by -3% over the last month, but with components on a buying spree, it will be interesting to see whether investors turn bullish. Meanwhile, the Hotel Stocks Index is outperforming on a one-month basis, but Chinese players 7 Days Group Holdings (NYSE: SVN - News), Home Inns & Hotels (NASDAQ: HMIN - News), and China Lodging Group (NASDAQ: HTHT - News) are largely to credit. Large-caps Marriott International (NYSE: MAR - News), Starwood Hotels & Resorts (NYSE: HOT - News), and Hyatt Hotels (NYSE: H - News) are trading at near break-even levels since this time last month. Investors can track the Hotel Stocks Index for performance trends and a suite of other metrics at tickerspy.com. Fun and informative, tickerspy.com is a free investing website where you can track multiple stock portfolios and compare against 250 proprietary Indexes tracking themes from dividends to ETFs to green energy to precious metals. Best of all, tickerspy.com lets you spy on the portfolios of nearly 3,000 Wall Street institutions and hedge funds and see graphs of their performance. Try tickerspy.com today and find out how you stack up against investing legends like Warren Buffett! This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chatham Lodging Trust Appoints Dennis M. Craven Chief Financial Officer Posted: 09 Sep 2010 02:00 PM PDT Press Release Source: Chatham Lodging Trust On Thursday September 9, 2010, 5:00 pm EDT PALM BEACH, Fla., Sept. 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Chatham Lodging Trust (NYSE:CLDT - News), a hotel real estate investment trust (REIT) focused on upscale extended-stay hotels and premium-branded select-service hotels, today announced that Dennis M. Craven has been appointed as its new executive vice president and chief financial officer, effective September 9, 2010. Craven replaces Julio E. Morales, who will remain with the company in a transition capacity for 30 days. Craven previously served as executive vice president and chief financial officer of Innkeepers USA Trust, a NYSE-listed hotel REIT, from March 2006 until the acquisition of Innkeepers by an affiliate of Apollo Investment Corporation in June 2007. Following the acquisition, he continued to serve as chief financial officer of Innkeepers until August 2010. Prior to joining Innkeepers in 2006, Craven was a partner in Addison Capital Advisors, a venture capital firm based in Memphis, Tenn., and served as senior vice president and chief accounting officer of Independent Bank in Memphis. Prior to that, he served as vice president and controller, and later vice president and chief accounting officer, of RFS Hotel Investors, Inc., a NYSE-listed hotel REIT. Prior to joining RFS, he was a senior manager with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in Memphis and London. About Chatham Lodging Trust Chatham Lodging Trust is a self-advised real estate investment trust that was organized to invest in upscale extended-stay hotels and premium-branded select-service hotels. The company currently owns 10 hotels with an aggregate of 1,248 rooms/suites and has three additional hotels under contract to purchase. Additional information about Chatham may be found at http://www.chathamlodgingtrust.com/. This press release may contain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 about Chatham Lodging Trust, including those statements regarding acquisitions, capital expenditures, future operating results and the timing and composition of revenues, among others, and statements containing words such as "expects," "believes" or "will," which indicate that those statements are forward-looking. Except for historical information, the matters discussed in this press release are forward-looking statements that are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results or performance to differ materially from those discussed in such statements. Additional risks are discussed in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
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| Chatham Lodging Trust Appoints Dennis M. Craven CFO Posted: 09 Sep 2010 03:12 PM PDT More Business News: PALM BEACH, Fla., Sept. 9 -- Chatham Lodging Trust (NYSE:CLDT) , a hotel real estate investment trust (REIT) focused on upscale extended-stay hotels and premium-branded select-service hotels, today announced that Dennis M. Craven has been appointed as its new executive vice president and chief financial officer, effective September 9, 2010. Craven replaces Julio E. Morales, who will remain with the company in a transition capacity for 30 days. Craven previously served as executive vice president and chief financial officer of Innkeepers USA Trust, a NYSE-listed hotel REIT, from March 2006 until the acquisition of Innkeepers by an affiliate of Apollo Investment Corporation in June 2007. Following the acquisition, he continued to serve as chief financial officer of Innkeepers until August 2010. Prior to joining Innkeepers in 2006, Craven was a partner in Addison Capital Advisors, a venture capital firm based in Memphis, Tenn., and served as senior vice president and chief accounting officer of Independent Bank in Memphis. Prior to that, he served as vice president and controller, and later vice president and chief accounting officer, of RFS Hotel Investors, Inc., a NYSE-listed hotel REIT. Prior to joining RFS, he was a senior manager with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in Memphis and London. About Chatham Lodging Trust Chatham Lodging Trust is a self-advised real estate investment trust that was organized to invest in upscale extended-stay hotels and premium-branded select-service hotels. The company currently owns 10 hotels with an aggregate of 1,248 rooms/suites and has three additional hotels under contract to purchase. Additional information about Chatham may be found at http://www.chathamlodgingtrust.com/. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
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