Starwood Capital sells 14-hotel portfolio for £858m: U.S. private equity firm Starwood Capital Group has sold a portfolio of 14 properties under the Principal Hotel Group umbrella to French real estate investment trust Foncière des Régions via its dedicated hotel subsidiary Foncière des Murs for £858 million ($1.17 million), according to a news release from the company.
The portfolio formerly owned by Starwood Capital contains 2,638 rooms. Ten of the hotels in the deal are currently branded under the Principal brand and two under the De Vere brand.
A news release from Starwood Capital notes the deal is expected to close in June.
IHG management deal opens doors for Kimpton in UK: In a related deal, InterContinental Hotels Group signed a deal with new owner Foncière des Régions to rebrand and assume management of 13 of the upscale and luxury hotels included in the 14-hotel deal with Starwood Capital, according to a news release from IHG.
According to the release, the agreement will allow IHG to debut its Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants brand in the U.K. in locations including London, Edinburgh and Manchester.
The news release from IHG also stated the deal “will establish a presence for (IHG’s) new upscale brand, which will be launched later this year.”
While IHG has not given additional details about that forthcoming brand, IHG CEO Keith Barr hinted to HNN in November that the company was exploring new brands.
Host, Hyatt raise guidance after strong Q1: The first quarter of 2018 seemed to beat expectations across the hotel industry, and two companies reporting results today have raised their guidance because of that performance.
Hyatt Hotels Corporation, which saw systemwide revenue per available room grow 4.3% year over year for the quarter, increased full-year 2018 RevPAR guidance to a range of 2% to 3.5% from a previous projection of 1% to 3%.
Meanwhile, Host Hotels & Resorts saw comparable RevPAR increase 1.7% for the quarter and increased the floor of their full-year guidance range. The company had projected RevPAR growth between 0.5% and 2.5% but has revised to 1.5% to 2.5%
Rate pushes RevPAR growth in U.S. hotels: An increase in average daily rate was enough to overcome a drop in occupancy and push up RevPAR in U.S. hotels for the week ending 28 April, according to the latest data from Hotel News Now’s parent company STR.
For the week, occupancy fell 0.6% year over year to 69.8% while ADR jumped 2.3% to $130.40 and RevPAR was up 1.7% to $91.05.
Detroit was the top-performing market with a RevPAR increase of 17.8% to $89.18.
Corporations seeing more profits, lower taxes in Q1: The story from the first quarter of 2018 seems to be one of more robust bottom lines and lower taxes, according to a story from The Wall Street Journal. According to the report, “more than half of the combined net-income growth reported by 200 large public companies in the first quarter stemmed from a decline in the companies’ effective tax rates.”
Several hotel CEOs have noted recently that they hope strong corporate performance, and the optimism tied to it, will translate to greater corporate spend on travel.
Compiled by Terence Baker and Sean McCracken.