HOUSTON – Moody National REIT I, a Houston-based hotel group, has agreed to buy 149 hotels from a real estate arm of Goldman Sachs for $1.7 billion.
The deal represents a huge growth initiative for the Houston REIT, which had a portfolio of only seven hotels at the beginning of 2015.
The hotel portfolio includes 14,000 rooms spread across 32 states, with heavy concentrations in in California, Arizona, Texas and the Northeast. The majority of the portfolio consists of Marriott and Hilton branded select-service hotels.
“This is a great concentration of assets in key states which will benefit from several years remaining in the expanding hotel cycle,” said Brett Moody, CEO and Chairman of the REIT. “These are well-branded and well-managed assets.”
While a bulk of the Marriott and Hilton assets have undergone renovations Moody National plans to accelerate and complete all remaining brand-required renovations, Moody said.
Many of the hotels being acquired by Moody were once part of the hotel empire owned by Gary Tharaldson. The Goldman Sachs’ Whitehall Street real estate investment arm bought the Tharaldson portfolio about 10 years ago.
A real estate investment trust that owns select-service hotels, Moody National REIT I, is sponsored by Moody REIT Sponsor, LLC, an affiliate of the Moody National Companies, which is a full-service commercial real estate company inclusive of mortgage, development, realty and title divisions. Founded in 1996, Moody National Companies has managed over $2B in commercial real estate.
At year-end 2014, the Moody REIT owned a 91-suite Homewood Suites in The Woodlands, a 138-room Hilton Garden Inn in the Arboretum development in Austin, a 123-room Hampton Inn in Austin, a 133-room Residence Inn in Grapevine, Texas; and hotels in California, Tennessee, South Carolina and New Jersey.