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Group and luxury assets like the Baccarat crystal company and the Taittinger champagne house. After revitalizing the portfolio, Starwood Capital sold Louvre Hotels to Jin Jiang International in 2015, while the remaining luxury assets were sold off separately, including four hotels in France. Though Starwood Capital and its LPs realized gains, the overall flow of the transaction did not go swimmingly.
Starwood bested other private-equity bidders for the deal, in part because Sternlicht befriended the company’ s CEO and put a focus on the family legacy. Despite its partner TPG dropping out, Starwood soldiered forward.“ We didn’ t even have a fund large enough to buy the public company,” Sternlicht said, but the asset base, which included Hôtel de Crillon, was too good to pass up. The global financial crisis, however, was not baked into the deal.“ We were well over
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The Bar at Baccarat Hotel New York takes its visual cues from great American long bars of the past. Photo credit: Baccarat Hotel New York
$ 1 billion in the money on an equity check half that size when the financial crisis happened and our cash flow disappeared,” he said.“ We had an opportunity to refinance all our equity out, but when 2008 happened, that moment disappeared.”
Sternlicht humbly said he took his eye off the ball—
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delegating when he should have been embedded. Still, in the 10 years it held the company, it doubled investors’ capital.“ When we exited the last assets, the IRR fell just slightly below our fund’ s investor preferred return and the parent earned nothing over 10 years. For me, it resulted in probably 60 trips to Europe to manage this conglomerate. The lesson was, when you have the chance to do something great, move fast,” Sternlicht said.
At 64 years old, Sternlicht still works at a breakneck pace. He admits it.“ I am very busy, but I also do too many things,” he said.“ Everybody who knows me wants me to slow down.” Most of all, his three children, one of which, Adrienne, is a world-ranked showjumper.“ I’ m trying,” he said.
Maybe not so hard. Though Sternlicht has a CEO of Starwood Hotels in Raul Leal
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to lean on, Sternlicht remains firmly fixed throughout the business lines. 1 Hotels has six hotels in some stage of development, including in Paris, while its sibling lifestyleminded Treehouse Hotels recently opened in Manchester, U. K., and Sunnyvale, Calif. Like its peers, Starwood Capital has also pushed hard into the $ 3-trillion private credit market, having recently closed three private credit-focused vehicles totaling $ 2.86 billion.
Sternlicht is an avid sports enthusiast; fit, he skis, plays tennis and loves golf. He wouldn’ t be that out of place bouncing around the piscinas of the Nutmeg State.“ I’ m just competitive,” he said.“ If I do something, I’ m always trying to get better at it,” which is not good news for those that try to take him on in the C-suite or the boardroom.“ And I like to win.”
A Studio Suite at Treehouse Hotel Manchester. Photo credit: Brad Mathews Photography
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18 hotelsmag. com November 2025 |