and patient capital,” he said, intimating that on Wall Street, money can be more restless.( The recent spate of private-capital investors wanting to pull their money out of funds is evidence of this.) Patel said that they look at deals through a different prism, with longer timelines, and with partners, who, he said,“ have no pressure to get out.”
Private-equity groups like Blackstone had been rather quiet on the hotel acquisition front post-COVID, but in the last 16 months, Blackstone has made a series of hotel deals, including Four Seasons Hotel San Francisco, Kimpton Hotel Eventi in New York, three hotels in Japan, including The Ritz-Carlton, Okinawa, and EAST Miami. Last November, fellow private-equity giant Brookfield Asset Management scooped up the 1,003-room Sheraton Phoenix Downtown, the city’ s biggest hotel. The seller was Blackstone.
These recent deals bode well for a headier transaction market through 2026 after a strong start to 2025, which was derailed in April by the so-named“ Liberation Day,” when President Donald Trump initiated major tariff increases, as Scott Trebilco, senior managing director in the real estate group at Blackstone, alluded to.“ There was optimism into 2025,” he said.“ Then April happened.”
The back half of 2025 picked up.“ We were calculated and targeted,” Trebilco said. Blackstone, with its thematic investment ethos, homed in on assets in major urban cities, like New York, Miami and, bucking the trend, San Francisco, areas“ with multiple demand drivers,” as Trebilco put it.
At the Americas Lodging Investment Summit, earlier this year, in Los Angeles, Mit Shah, CEO of Noble Investment Group, which invests in and owns hotels, said Noble’ s fourth quarter was up 7 %, which carried over into January 2025, when they were up 8 %.“ I was wildly optimistic,” he said. Then came DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, an initiative by the second Trump administration to modernize information technology, maximize
The Wall Street Panel at the Hunter Conference. From left: Moderator Suril Shah, CEO & managing partner of Riller Capital; Christian Charnaux, CDO of Hilton; Karim Alibhai, principal of Gencom; Mit Shah, CEO of Noble Investment Group; and Scott Trebilco, sr. managing director, real estate, Blackstone.
productivity and cut excess regulations and spending within the federal government.“ It took a significant amount of government travel out of the system almost immediately,” he said.“ Then the Canadians started disliking us and then there was Liberation Day and a record government shutdown.”
Now, Shah is optimistic about RevPAR growth in 2026, despite most forecasters predicting flat to even negative growth. He is buoyed by events such as FIFA World Cup and America250.
On the deal side, Noble bucked the overall trend. Shah said Noble had its largest transactional year in 2025 in its 32- year history as a company. Hospitality, he said, is an eight-cap business where buyers can finance deals at SOFR-plus 200.
Karim Alibhai, founder and principal of Gencom, has been active; he’ s been aggressive. One of its most recent acquisitions, in partnership with two other firms, was the InterContinental New York Times Square for a reported $ 230 million or just shy of $ 379,000 per key. A year ago, Gencom acquired The Ritz-Carlton, New Orleans and the Courtyard by Marriott French Quarter Iberville, a combined 758-room hotel portfolio in the city’ s French Quarter.
“ There has been some loosening up in the last 24 months,” he said.“ Sellers are more realistic on pricing and valuations.” Despite more challenging underwriting, Gencom’ s advantage is its preference of long-term asset holds.“ We don’ t have pressure of
three-year IRR goals. We underwrite 10- year goals,” he said.“ You factor the noise into the underwriting,” Shah added.
Christian Charnaux, CDO for Hilton, pointed to the resilience of the hotel industry despite the cost pressures that owners face down.“ We are manically focused down the middle of the P & L,” said Trebilco, since its hotels aren’ t managed by them.
The resilience theme is shared by Main Street, as voiced by Mitch Patel.“ You couldn’ t create policies less detrimental to our industry, but we still have positive gains,” he said.
Positivity in overall travel was a sentiment shared by Shah, who said that travel is innate within us all. And while the K-shaped economy has been an enduring theme, where high-income earners thrive and rise and lower-income households struggle, Shah said it’ s starting to narrow. He also referred to the great wealth transfer, an unprecedented, multi-decade shift of an estimated up to $ 124 trillion in assets from baby boomers and the silent generation to their heirs( Gen X, millennials, and Gen Z).“ When you pass down money they didn’ t earn, they will spend it on travel,” Shah jokingly said.
Back on Main Street, Mitch Patel reminded the audience that the hotel industry is a corner-street business. And while it can be a risky business, as Azim Saju, CEO of ARK Holdings, said, those with conviction, belief and entrepreneurship are positioned to succeed.“ Bet on yourself,” he said.
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