Black Swan Holdings LLC has acquired the Lyric brand to help grow its luxury rental reach. The new addition will complement Black Swan’s real asset manager, Black Swan Asset Management LLC, which was launched earlier this year and raises capital to purchase Class A multi-family properties across North America.
The acquisition includes domestic and international trademark rights, a brand package, performance and operational data and the lyric.com domain.
Black Swan will relaunch the Lyric brand this summer.
Along with rebranding of the current Black Swan Class A assets, which includes holdings at LIZ and The Grant at Savannah. Ga., to “reflect Lyric standards,” the company’s asset manager is executing its real estate acquisitions pipeline to open more Lyric-branded properties.
“In a technology-focused category where brand and experience took a backseat, Lyric surely stood out. The magnitude and extraordinary level of investment in the brand became apparent to us as Black Swan took control of the former Lyric units at LIZ DC,” said Zachary Tombley, founder and managing partner at Black Swan Holdings. “This ignited a discussion between Andrew Kitchell, founder and former CEO of Lyric, and myself regarding the future trajectory of the Lyric brand. Controlling a world-class, developed brand became essential as we shifted to increasing our expansion through real estate acquisition.”
Both Black Swan and Lyric have experience in strategic financing, operations and growth performance in the industry. Black Swan has managed 20 assets across nine markets since 2015. In 2022, Black Swan and Wheelhouse began negotiations for an acquisition and closed the deal later that year.
Launched as Black Swan Ventures in 2015, Black Swan Holdings specializes in owner-operated luxury short-term rentals in high-demand markets.
“We’re seeing a lot of success in our real estate acquisitions strategy despite the current state of the capital markets, and our development and capital partners are really excited to invest in future Lyric properties with us,” said Daniel Sodroski, managing partner at Black Swan Holdings.
Lyric, founded in 2014, was created to showcase a use case for revenue management software, Wheelhouse. The brand was operating close to 600 units across 17 markets by Q1 2020. With the pandemic forcing the travel industry to shut down temporarily, Lyric pivoted to its in-house revenue management software, Wheelhouse.
Some important Lyric properties include 70 Pine in New York City, Park 12 in San Diego, Muze at Met in Miami, and Catalyst in Houston.
“Our goal with Lyric was to create a distinct lifestyle brand that would speak directly to the modern traveler,” said Kitchell. “It was clear Black Swan was doing something similar and doing it well. Since winding down operations, we’ve gotten much interest in the Lyric IP from other prospective purchasers. After seeing what Zachary and his team have accomplished thus far, our investors and team didn’t think there was a group better than Black Swan to shepherd the brand we spent so much energy building. We’re excited to see where they take it.”