Friday, December 21, 2007

Irving-based FelCor acquires two Renaissance resort hotels

By Pegasus News wire

IRVING — FelCor Lodging Trust Incorporated today announced it has acquired two upper upscale, destination resorts from entities owned by affiliates of Walton Street Capital, Rockpoint Group and SCS Advisors for a combined purchase price of $225 million. The Renaissance Vinoy Resort & Golf Club is located in St. Petersburg, Florida and the Renaissance Esmeralda Resort & Spa is located in Indian Wells, California. Marriott International, Inc. will continue to manage the properties under a long-term management agreement.

Photo not provided by Felcor

For an additional twenty bucks, they threw in this upscale hotel as well

The Renaissance Vinoy Resort & Golf Club, a historic, 361-room, AAA Four-Diamond resort, features an 18-hole golf course and club house, 74-slip marina, world-class tennis facility, over 50,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor meeting space, award winning restaurants, day spa, historical museum and the private Vinoy Club. Opened in 1925, the resort has earned the National Register of Historic Places designation.

The Renaissance Esmeralda Resort & Spa, a 560-room, AAA Four-Diamond resort, is situated on 70 acres and nestled at the base of the Santa Rosa Mountains and has been featured in Condé Nast Traveler's 2004 Gold List of "World's Best Places to Stay" and Travel + Leisure's "500 Greatest Hotels in the World.” The Indian Wells Golf Resort is host to the annual PGA skins game.

The company forecasts that the combined properties will contribute approximately $17 million of Hotel EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest Expense, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization) during 2008.

“These two hotels meet our stated strategy to continue to improve the overall quality of the portfolio. The hotels meet our criteria of acquiring upper upscale hotels and resorts in markets with high barriers to entry. From a value perspective, we are acquiring hotels with IRRs that exceed our weighted average cost of capital, will provide the portfolio with higher, future EBITDA growth and will be accretive to FFO in 2008. In addition, we will use our core competencies to further enhance the EBITDA growth and our return on investment through various redevelopment opportunities,” said Richard A. Smith, FelCor’s President and Chief Executive Officer.

Source: Felcor

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