Skift Take
Blackstone is a very savvy, metrics-oriented hotel investor, and with $10 billion available to invest in real estate, the world's largest hotel operator is a lodging force to be closely monitored. Despite its public company status, Blackstone is fairly tight-lipped about its strategy, and the industry awaits Blackstone's next chess move.
In 2009, when Blackstone relocated Hilton Worldwide's headquarters from Beverly Hills to McLean, Virginia, on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., it was much more than a change of scenery and address.
Acquired by Blackstone for nearly $27 billion a couple of years earlier, Hilton had been languishing, falling behind better-positioned chains such as Marriott and InterContinental, and was in dire need of a dramatic change in management culture from a laid-back California style to a more professional and analytic approach.
The move was a cultural cold splash of water in the face.
By all accounts, Blackstone, the self-proclaimed world's largest hotel operator, succeeded in restoring some luster to Hilton Worldwide, which owns 10 brands, including Hilton Hotels, Waldorf Astoria, Doubletree and Embassy Suites. Since 2007, when Blackstone bought Hilton and took the public company private, Blackstone has reduced Hilton's debt, and added nearly 150,000 rooms and close to 1,000 properties to Hilton Worldwide's global expanse.
$60 billion in real estate
Blackstone, a private equity firm that became a public company in 2007, currently has $60 billion in real estate assets under management, overwhelmingly in office buildings, hotels and shopping centers.
But, as its track record overseeing Hilton shows, Blackstone is not a passive investor at all when it comes to its l
