Quotes of the Week: Blackstone, Hotel Equities, Soho House

QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“When we wake up in five years, I think it may not be the ticker [MAR for Marriott International Inc.], but maybe BOY because the whole thing has been renamed Bonvoy, and it’s a travel ecosystem, not a hotel business.” – Scott Trebilco, Blackstone  Read story

“We looked at the CALA opportunity long and hard through our HR lens, our political lens and went out to our brand partners, who welcomed us with open arms and said, ‘come on in, we’ll help you guys.’ And the Trust guys are amazing and have relationships we could never think of having.” – Joe Reardon, Hotel Equities  Read story

“When we went public, I believed the market would reward growth, but it seemed to quickly switch to rewarding free cash flow and profit over our top-line growth. So, at this point in time, we have all the costs of being a public company with few benefits.”” – Ron Burkle, Soho House  Read story

“I’m hoping for the best like everybody else, and I think there needed to be some changes [at Aimbridge Hospitality. [I like] making Steve Joyce the executive chairman. Steve has been a friend and colleague for many years, and he’s a hotel guy. So, to bring in a hotel guy, I give them a lot of credit.” – Dave Johnson, Horizon Capital Partners  Read story

“We believe the ~14% [share exchange] figure is a good line in the sand for the investment community to remember over the near term, especially if the political/regulatory backdrop were to change in 2025 post-election later this year. For now, the focus for each company is on execution and closing the stocks' valuation gaps (both absolutely and relatively) versus peers and historical levels, which has captured investors’ focus since Choice walked away from its M&A pursuit (based on our conversations and level of inbound interest).” – Michael Bellisario, R.W. Baird  Read story

“The primary focus is on assisting Lexima in broadening its outreach to other institutional hotel owners who desire a higher level of service from their management company. We believe Lexima will be ideally positioned in the future with 50 to 70 hotels under management, increasing over time and with a select group of owners.” – Glenn Alba, TMGOC  Read story

“A big part of the growth in hotels is in conversion and there’s a significant amount of independent hotels in China today that are just great opportunities for conversion because it’s still [only] about 10% in China that are branded hotels; so, enormous growth opportunity.” – Gary Rosen, Accor  Read story

“Murano Global Investments is one of the very few entities that have the vision, experience and professional network to succeed in Mexico’s nuanced real estate development and hospitality market. It is these differentiators that initially drew us to the company and having gotten to know the team better over the course of this process, I’m confident it will succeed in executing its growth strategy. We look forward to continuing to offer our support along the way as shareholders, advisors and friends.” – Shawn Matthews, HCM Acquisition Corp.  Read story