LOS ANGELES Capital Hotel Management has acquired the four-property Santa Monica Hotel Group—an asset-management portfolio that includes Four Seasons Hotel Los Angeles—and is hiring two of the firm’s executives. Terms of the transaction have not been disclosed.
Santa Monica Hotel Group’s asset management portfolio also includes La Posada de Santa Fe, New Mexico; Marriott Key Center, Cleveland; and Harbor View Hotel & Resort in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.
Pamela Greacen, founder and president of Los Angeles-based Santa Monica Hotel Group, will join Beverly, Massachusetts-based CHM as executive vice president. Since founding the company in 2000, Greacen has been responsible for the due diligence, asset management, renovation and repositioning of more than US$2 billion in luxury hotels throughout the United States. Anthony Tarakdjian, a 25-year veteran of hotel finance, will also join CHM.
“This acquisition is indicative of the recovering economy,” says CHM CEO Ken Wilson. “The transactions market is heating up, and we are expanding our reach to meet our investors’ demand. In recent years, CHM has been active in major East Coast urban markets, Midwestern cities with convention center headquarter hotels and select offshore resorts. But with this acquisition, we can now offer a national asset management platform with expanded geographic expertise, particularly on the West Coast.”
CHM and Santa Monica Hotel Group share a similar approach to asset management and value enhancement, Wilson says.
“Pam brings 17 years of hotel real estate experience, geographic expertise and a portfolio that complements—but does not overlap—our own,” says CHM President Chad Crandell. “Her investor clients own mostly luxury hotels, while CHM’s core competency and portfolio is skewed toward large, upscale, full-service properties. In addition to several new asset management engagements secured over the past six months, including three nationally-branded receivership assignments and the asset management of a historic Mid-Atlantic destination resort, we also are actively looking to source deals for our investment partners. Together with Pam, we can accommodate our growing practice and provide a full scope of services to our investors who are looking to source, acquire, operate and earn superior returns on investment.”
During the downturn, CHM’s asset managed portfolio has significantly outperformed the hotel industry at large, experiencing less than half the occupancy loss and only a third of the decline in ADR, Crandell says. “For 2009-2010, our asset managed hotels, delivered NOI growth that was five times the market average recovery rate, and we are poised to outperform again this year.”
CHM is the largest independent hotel asset management company in the United States, actively overseeing 29 hotels including urban landmark properties, high-profile destination resorts and convention headquarter hotels aggregating more than 15,800 rooms.
