The sky is not falling, the playbook has been reinvented and a lot of cans have been kicked down the road, but there are multiple ways to skin a cat.
To three young hotel industry professionals, financing a hotel project today is so complicated that it warrants a little mixing of the metaphors.
In the latest episode of the Next Gen in Lodging podcast, host Chris Henry has a conversation with guests Firas Turkmani, a director in capital advisory firm Ackman-Ziff’s hospitality division, and Adam Suleman, a principal at Equinox Hospitality, on the challenges of securing financing to buy, develop and renovate hotels through property improvement plans.
Suleman, Henry and Turkmani all started their careers in hospitality right around the time of the Great Recession.
"I remember being told by money advisers to take your cash out of the bank and literally bury it," Suleman said. "Today, it's a totally different landscape."
Find out what he means, and how the other mixed metaphors apply to hotel financing, by listening to the episode above.
About the Speakers
Henry, one of three hosts of the Next Gen in Lodging Podcast, co-founded Majestic Hospitality, a consultancy and development firm specializing in full-service hotels and based in Los Angeles, in August 2008. He joined the International Society of Hospitality Consultants in 2017 as its youngest-ever inductee and is a member of the Latino Hotel Association’s Board of Directors, the American Hotel & Lodging Association and the Asian American Hotel Owners Association.
Previously, Henry worked for Prince Hotels & Resorts on the Big Island of Hawaii at Hapuna Beach Prince Hotel and the world-famous Mauna Kea Beach Hotel, as well as with Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts.
At Ackman-Ziff, which specializes in investment in boutique real estate, Turkmani assists in the origination and placement of debt and joint-venture equity. Since joining the firm in July 2014, he has helped facilitate more than $3.5 billion in raised proceeds toward redevelopment, ground-up construction, acquisitions, leaseholds and specialty structures.
Prior to joining Ackman-Ziff, Turkmani served as a financial analyst with Wells Fargo in its Hospitality Finance Group, where he helped originate more than $300 million of fixed and floating-rate loans.
Suleman's career has focused on real estate acquisitions and investment, and includes extensive hotel operations experience from his time with Starwood Hotels & Resorts’ W Brand. His hotel resume covers both union and non-union luxury properties in New York City, New Orleans and San Francisco. Equinox Hospitality is a hotel investment, management, acquisition and development company, which owns hotels in Arizona; California; Hawaii; Texas; Washington, D.C.; and Saudi Arabia. The firm also invests in other real estate classes such as multifamily, assisted living, workforce housing and retail.
Listen, Follow and Subscribe
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