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1. Sunstone Agrees To Acquire Hyatt Regency in San Antonio
In an agreement with an affiliate of Hyatt Hotels Corp., Sunstone Hotel Investors will purchase the 630-room Hyatt Regency San Antonio Riverwalk for $230 million, HNN’s Terence Baker reports.
Sunstone will use a portion of the funds from its $370 million sale of the Boston Park Plaza back in 2023.
“The acquisition of Hyatt Regency San Antonio Riverwalk allows us to redeploy capital at a higher long-term return and is a great example of the value we can create through our investment lifecycle approach. The addition of this hotel, combined with our two recently launched brand conversions and the completion of our transformative investment later this year at Andaz Miami Beach, will position Sunstone for significant earnings growth as we move into 2025,” Sunstone CEO Bryan Giglia said in a news release.
2. Choice EMEA Franchises 33 French Hotels
Choice Hotels Europe, Middle East and Africa came to a 20-year strategic agreement with French operator Zenitude Hôtel-Résidences that will convert 33 Zenitude hotels to Choice brands, HNN’s Terence Baker reports. The agreement will add more than 4,000 rooms to Choice’s portfolio.
“Our new collaboration with Zenitude marks a significant milestone for our portfolio in EMEA and another great step in line with our international expansion strategy. Over the past 30 years, France has been a key market,” said Losada Revol, senior vice president and general manager, international division at Choice, in a news release.
3. RLJ’s Leslie Hale Feels Responsibility To Lead
RLJ Lodging Trust President and CEO Leslie Hale said she could’ve been a statistic growing up in Los Angeles’ South Central neighborhood, but she craved structure and order as she carved out a career in the hospitality industry, HNN’s Stephanie Ricca reports.
Hale became the first Black woman to lead a real estate investment trust when she was named president and CEO of RLJ in 2018.
“The thing that kept me going, even though sometimes I wasn’t sure whether I could do it, was a sense of responsibility,” she said. “If not me, then who? A lot of people of color who attend HBCUs self-select out. Whether it’s women or minorities, the further you go up, there are fewer of us. So I always felt that when an opportunity presented itself, I needed to do it so we could demonstrate we were capable of doing it and can open up doors for more of us.”
4. European Central Bank Keeps Rates at Record Highs
The European Central Bank kept interest rates at 4% for the 20 countries that share the euro currency, Reuters reports. The bank has kept the rate at this mark since September in its attempt to fight inflation.
Inflation is trending toward the bank’s goal of 2%, though, so interest rate cuts could be on the horizon.
"If the Governing Council’s updated assessment of the inflation outlook, the dynamics of underlying inflation and the strength of monetary policy transmission were to further increase its confidence that inflation is converging to the target in a sustained manner, it would be appropriate to reduce the current level of monetary policy restriction," the ECB said.
5. US Unemployment Numbers Down Week Over Week
The Labor Department reported unemployment claims for the week ending April 6 were down 11,000 compared to the previous week, the Associated Press reports. The job market has remained strong even in the face of the Federal Reserve trying to combat inflation.
“The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark borrowing rate 11 times beginning in March of 2022 in a bid to stifle the four-decade high inflation that took hold after the economy bounced back from the COVID-19 recession of 2020. Part of the Fed’s goal was to loosen the labor market and cool wage growth, which it believes contributed to persistently high inflation,” the AP reports.