Blackstone to buy Florida resorts from Meristar
yahoo.reuters.com
Wed Feb 1, 2006 7:38 AM ET
NEW YORK, Feb 1 (Reuters) - Hotel real estate investment trust MeriStar Hospitality Corp. (MHX) said on Wednesday it agreed to sell 10 Florida properties to an affiliate of private equity firm Blackstone Group for about $367 million in cash.
The deal involves nine hotels and a golf and tennis club, including MeriStar's South Seas Island Resort in Captiva, Florida, and its Best Western Sanibel Island Beach Resort. It is set to close by the end of March.
The agreement, reported by Reuters on Tuesday, comes amid a push by MeriStar to take advantage of what it has called a "favorable" selling environment. Last June MeriStar sold the Hilton Monterey for $20.5 million.
The company plans to use proceeds from property sales to pay down debt and eventually buy more properties.
The deal follows a steady pattern of luxury hotel acquisitions that New York-based Blackstone has made in the past few years.
Blackstone, one of the largest private equity firms, agreed last June to acquire Wyndham International Inc. for $1.44 billion. That was on top of $5.1 billion it spent in 2004 to acquire the hotel chains Extended Stay America, Prime Hospitality and Boca Resorts.
Bethesda, Maryland-based MeriStar owns 58 mainly upscale, full-service hotels in 19 states and the District of Columbia. The company owns hotels under such brands as Hilton, Sheraton, Marriott, Ritz-Carlton, Westin, Doubletree and Radisson. |
