SCOTTSDALE, Arizona -- Ardent Hotel Advisors, one of the nation's premier hotel management and asset management companies, today announced that it has partnered with Steven Surgent to form Ardent Hotel Investors (AHI), a real estate private equity firm that will focus on the acquisition of value-added hospitality opportunities throughout the U.S. As principal of AHI, Surgent will be responsible for launching the company's hospitality investment platform in addition to providing support to Ardent Hotel Advisors in sourcing third-party management contracts.
"In 2008, we continued to focus on growth, and the addition of Steve to our senior management team gives us the bench strength and expertise we will need to accelerate that growth," said Jim Evans, Ardent principal and CEO. "We have entered the most turbulent times since at least the hotel real estate collapse in the early 1990s. Steve's extensive background in hospitality real estate and finance will be critical over the next 12 to 36 months, as the industry responds to and finds ways to deal with the current global credit crisis."
"I believe today's historic economic and capital market difficulties will create the most compelling buying environment since 2001-2003, perhaps even the RTC days of the early 1990's," Surgent said. "As economic and real estate market fundamentals continue to deteriorate through next year and property values continue to fall, we believe the next 12 to 36 months will represent an opportune time to put our capital and turn-around capabilities to work. Our collective investment and management expertise will provide complete control of the value-creation process from start to finish, a key component to our growth strategy. Focusing primarily on premium select- and full-service branded hotels, we will target both distressed opportunities and traditional value-added properties at what we believe will be significantly higher cap rates than the past four years."
Prior to joining Ardent Hotel Advisors, Surgent was vice president of acquisitions for Everest Holdings, a privately held real estate investment company based in Scottsdale, Ariz. He was involved in the underwriting of more than $12 billion of hotel, office and multifamily assets and the acquisition and disposition of more than $100 million in hotel assets. In addition, he has been actively involved in the completion of more than 100 advisory assignments involving the development, acquisition and disposition of a broad array of high-profile hotel, office, multifamily and residential assets across North America. He began his career in finance and investing with JP Morgan Chase and Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. He holds a business administration degree from the University of San Diego.
"The Ardent senior executive team now has more than 100 total years of operations experience and has navigated successfully through numerous economic cycles," Evans said. "Despite the credit crisis, we believe there will be plenty of acquisition, development and management opportunities for operators and owners who remain flexible during the current global economic crisis and have the expertise and experience to succeed in a turbulent hotel real estate market."