LOS ANGELES — Just weeks after buying a competing aparthotel company, Kasa is ready to keep moving forward and growing, its chief executive said.
Kasa Founder and CEO Roman Pedan sat down with CoStar News Hotels at the Americas Lodging Investment Summit to talk about his company's the latest developments.
Kasa bought Mint House last month, adding some meaningful high-quality properties, including the Mint House at 70 Pine by Kasa in New York’s Financial District, Pedan said. The rest of the Mint House portfolio includes a property next to the White House in Washington, D.C., and several marquee properties in Nashville, Tennessee; Tampa; St. Petersburg, Florida; Dallas; and Menlo Park, California.
“So, a big, big acquisition and a lot of effort on our team, on the Mint House team, clearly a maturation moment for the aparthotel industry,” he said.
Kasa’s team has known the Mint House team for quite some time, Pedan said. The aparthotel sector has recognized the need for scale for a while as it’s beneficial to owners and better for guests. Having a larger network of properties to choose from gives guests more choice and more exciting stay options. For the owner, the added scale provides opportunities to lower costs and add more capabilities.
“The meaningful investment that we're making to drive more property performance, we are integrating in a ‘one plus one equals three’ way with Mint House, meaning we're taking the best of Mint House, the best of Kasa, and bringing together a product, both for the guest and for the owner, that delivers both more profit to the properties and a better and more compelling guest experience to the guests,” Pedan said.
To that end, Kasa is integrating the commercial team from Mint House as they had good corporate and group sales effort that complements some of the technology and other capabilities the deal brought together, he said.
Toward the tail end of 2025, Mint House ran a process looking for the right strategic partner with the understanding that scale would benefit all stakeholders, Pedan said. The executive teams at both companies have known each other for a while, and there was a lot of cultural overlap.
The aparthotel space has received a fair bit of attention from the wider hotel industry in recent months. First, Sonder Holdings had a public collapse late last year that was amplified by its partnership with Marriott International, which had to move quickly to accommodate guests who were suddenly left without a space to stay. Second, Hilton announced just weeks ago its partnership with Placemakr to grow its apartment-style offerings.
Hilton’s partnership with Placemakr is continued confidence in the aparthotel space, Pedan said.
“We believe this is validation of the underlying thesis that consumers want a product like the one we're delivering, an apartment-style product that is reliable and consistent and offers people more space as they're seeking more flexibility in their life and their travel,” he said.
When people stay at an apartment-style property, that is similar to how people live, Pedan said.
“There's a metaphorical meaning around lifestyle properties, but perhaps more obviously, the types of properties that allow people to live on the road like they live at home should be the way we want people to travel,” he said. “We want people to be guests in our properties, and there's just very few options for that.”
For more from Kasa’s Roman Pedan, watch the video or podcast embedded above.