Noble Investment Group is buying a portfolio of 31 Sonesta Simply Suites-branded hotels from Service Properties Trust for an undisclosed amount.
Noble, an Atlanta-based hospitality real estate investment manager, declined to comment on the deal at this time.
CoStar data shows the portfolio includes properties across multiple U.S. states. They will move from brand managed to the franchise model, and J&P Asset Management will operate the properties.
Noble has been an active investor this year, including taking on a portfolio of 51 hotels through a joint venture in early October. Not including that deal, Noble has acquired 26 properties through individual and portfolio sales this year, CoStar data shows. It also has sold off four properties this year.
Real estate investment trust Service Properties Trust has been working on a long-term strategy to sell some of its Sonesta-branded hotels to reduce debt levels and increase liquidity. It is selling the hotels encumbered with long-term franchise agreements. It owns 34% of the Sonesta International Hotels brand company, with the remainder held by The RMR Group, which is Service Properties Trust’s external manager.
During Service Properties Trust’s third-quarter earnings call, President and CEO Christopher Bilotto said the company had 69 hotel sales set to close in November and December for a combined $567.5 million, The company planned to use the proceeds from the remaining sales to initiate the repayment of its February 2027 senior unsecured notes.
At the beginning of the year, the real estate investment trust committed to selling 121 hotels with nearly 16,000 keys for gross proceeds of $959 million. During the third quarter, it sold 40 hotels with 5,565 keys for $292.4 million.
The company has some hotels that are negative earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization drags, and they are on the full-service hotel side, Bilotto said. The initial plan for 2026 is to focus on a portion of these to put up for sale early in the year, and it will take a more incremental approach to how it thinks about layering in the sales, he said.
“I think it's important to note ... selling negative-EBITDA hotels in itself takes time,” he said. “Given the overall backdrop of where the hotel performance is going more sector-related, we just want to strike the right balance of timing to be focused on transactions.”
Service Properties Trust’s disposition approach next year will be incremental with the caveat that “we will be selling hotels,” he said.