How Blackstone’s Earlier Hilton Investment Will Guide Its Hotel Strategy in This Crisis
Photo Credit: Blackstone took a roughly 5 percent stake in Extended Stay America in mid-March. Flickr / Mike Mozart
Skift Take
Coronavirus may lead to distressed pricing and investment opportunities for firms like Blackstone, but it could take up to a year before we see the first wave of acquisition plays.
The world’s largest alternative asset manager is using the hotel industry’s last downturn as an example for how to weather the coronavirus storm.
Blackstone’s 11-year investment in Hilton is one of the longest and most successful private equity plays in travel. The firm bought Hilton in 2007 ahead of the Great Recession for $26 billion but later wrote down its investment by roughly 70 percent due to the financial crisis. Blackstone held onto the hotel company and took it public in 2013, eventually shedding shares until checking out entirely in 2018 with a cumulative $14 billion profit.
Blackstone intends to use that Hilton model through the current economic downturn.
“Our experience with Hilton, which we purchased in 2007 ahead of the market crash, is an excellent illustration,” Blacks
