Blackstone Takes Stake in Hotel Owner Sunstone as Private Equity Eyes More Lodging Deals
Photo Caption: A guest room at the Montage Healdsburg, a resort in California wine country owned by Sunstone Hotels. Source: Montage.
Skift Take
In a turbulent financial market, players such as Blackstone are worth tracking because they usually have more wherewithal to invest in hotels than others do.
The private-equity firm Blackstone Group bought a minority stake in Sunstone Hotel Investors, which owns and operates 15 U.S. hotels, according to financial documents filed last week.
The investment was notable less for its size than what it indicated about market trends. Blackstone bought about 8.65 million shares in the small, publicly traded Aliso Viejo, California-based hotel real-estate investment trust.
Blackstone's move gave it control of about 4 percent of shares outstanding and made the firm one of the five largest shareholders as of June 30. Sunstone's largest investors, such as BlackRock, Vanguard, and StateStreet, have invested passively, holding the stock in their mutual funds and other offerings.
Blackstone and Sunstone didn't respond to requests for comment.
While small, Sunstone owns full-service hotels under the
