NEW YORK CITY-Poised to seize on ideal market conditions, the Blackstone Group is getting ready to sell Hilton Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, which it acquired in 2007 for more than $18 billion, plus more than $7 billion in assumed debt. The private equity firm is reportedly preparing an IPO for the hotel giant and has hired four banks—Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley—to start the process, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Blackstone has been shedding assets of late, taking advantage of the dominance of the public market over private equity. The firm revealed earlier this week it would sell its holdings in La Quinta Hotels and, in July it filed plans to sell shares in its Extended Stay America hotel brand. In the second quarter the firm issued an IPO for Sea World Entertainment and, the Journal reports, it sold shares in companies like Nielsen Holdings. The company completed an IPO of Pinnacle Foods in the first quarter.
Industrial is Blackstone's latest area of interest.The firm is not likely looking to get out of the hotel business necessarily; rather, it is simply taking advantage of a good climate both in the public markets and for the hotel sector, according to David Kessler, co-managing partner of CohnReznick's Bethesda, MD office and national director of the firm's national commercial real estate practice.
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Rayna Katz
Rayna Katz is a seasoned business journalist whose extensive experience includes coverage of the lodging sector, travel and the culinary space. She was most recently content director for a business-to-business publisher, overseeing four publications. While at Meeting News, a travel trade publication, she received a Best Reporting award for a story on meeting cancellations in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.
