NEW YORK CITY—The Blackstone Group has completed its $6-billion acquisition of Chicago-based Strategic Hotels & Resorts Inc., part of a series of privatizations the REIT sector has seen in 2015. The acquisition through Blackstone Real Estate Partners VIII LP, which closed Friday ahead of an originally projected first-quarter 2016 completion, is also the latest in a long line of lodging industry investments by Blackstone, as well as one of a number of large-scale transactions in the sector during the past year.

GlobeSt.com first reported on the deal this past September, three weeks after Strategic Hotels announced that it was exploring a possible sale. Blackstone is acquiring all outstanding shares of common stock of the hotel REIT for $14.25 per share in cash, and all of the outstanding membership units of its Strategic Hotels Funding LLC subsidiary for $14.25 per unit in cash. Strategic Hotels' common shares, which traded under the BEE symbol, have ceased trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

When the sale was first announced, Tyler Henritze, co-head of US acquisitions for Blackstone Real Estate, commented, "As long-term investors in the lodging industry, we remain confident in the fundamentals of the sector despite recent market volatility." The New York City-based alternative assets giant has taken Hilton and La Quinta private over the past decade, among its other investments in the sector.

J.P. Morgan acted as BEE's financial advisor, while J.P. Morgan and Duff & Phelps provided fairness opinions to the REIT's board of directors in connection with the transaction. Sidley Austin LLP acted as legal advisor to Strategic Hotels, while Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP served as Blackstone's legal advisor on the deal.

Separately, Bloomberg Business reported on Thursday that Blackstone was seeking to raise $4 billion for its latest real estate mezzanine debt fund. Bloomberg cited documents from the Pennsylvania Public School Employees' Retirement System, which voted this past Tuesday to commit up to $100 million to Blackstone Real Estate Debt Strategies III. The new fund will originate debt on properties located mainly in North America and Europe; a cap has not been set.

The closed-end BREDS funds, launched in 2008, "have consistently delivered outstanding performance for investors, generating 12% net returns with no realized losses across the lending platform," according to a report to the PPSERS board by senior portfolio manager William Stalter. "BREDS' expansive role in providing debt capital continues to benefit from robust transaction activity and a shift away from traditional banks to specialty lenders such as BREDS for certain lending activities." BREDS III's predecessor closed at $3.5 billion in 2013; a Blackstone spokesman did not respond to GlobeSt.com's requests for comment by deadline Friday.