SOFTBRAND-OWNED HOSPITALITY INVESTOR IS RUMORED FOR SALE , BUT THE GLOBAL INVESTOR REMAINS A NET BUYER , ESPECIALLY IN JAPAN .
By JEFF WEINSTEIN , EDITOR IN CHIEF
business of buying and selling companies and has not been directly involved in the investment process of our funds . We will continue to serve our fund investors through our rigorous data-driven investment approach and intensive hands-on asset management .
Teppanyaki restaurant at the Fortress-owned Hakodate Kokusai Hotel , Hakodate , Hokkaido , Japan
managed approximately US $ 54 billion in assets on behalf of about 1,800 institutional clients and private investors worldwide . It has offices around the globe and its Credit Private Equity business , which includes real estate , has its primary office in the San Francisco area , with investment and asset management teams located in New York , Dallas , Los Angeles , Tokyo , London , etc . But with a big focus on Japan , HOTELS recently spoke to Yamamoto , who leads Fortress ’ s hospitality investment team there , about the group ’ s hotel activity in the recovering market .
HOTELS : Can you address the rumors about SoftBrand looking to sell Fortress Investment ? SHUNSUKE YAMAMOTO : SoftBank Group Corp . owns Fortress Investment Group LLC . Fortress has had different ownership structures under its 20 years of history : private , public , and private under SoftBank . We have had strong investment performance and management continuity under every structure . Furthermore , SoftBank is a financial investor in the
H : What is your hotel investment background and how long have you been with Fortress ? SY : I started my career in real estate investment banking at UBS and JP Morgan . I ’ ve been a hotel investor / asset manager since 2005 when I joined a hotel investment platform formed by Soros Real Estate ( now Alpine Grove Partners ) and Westmont Hospitality Group .
I ’ ve always been attracted by hospitality ’ s unique positioning in the real estate PE world where there is large variability in the achievable returns for the same hard asset depending on the asset manager ’ s vision and capabilities . I ’ m not a hotel school graduate but an LLB , MBA by educational background . The ability to enhance a hotel ’ s performance by implementing better pricing strategies ( revenue management ), better marketing ( loyalty programs , digital marketing , etc .) is something not often seen in other real estate types .
I joined Fortress in February 2011 and have led the growth of the Fortress hotel asset management team as well as MHM . MHM was a budgeted extended-stay operator when Fortress gained control in 2012 . Today , it is Japan ’ s fourth largest hotel management company by number of hotel rooms and is the only manager in the top five that handles a full range of hotel types : fullservice , resort , ryokan , limited-service , extended-stay , serviced apartments , and capsule .
H : How is the hotel portfolio in Japan performing and what is the forecast ? SY : The performance varies greatly by type of hotel and location .
Same as with other regions , drive-to destinations have performed strongly in 2022 as have some fly-to destinations like Okinawa and Hokkaido .
Limited-service hotels in markets where a high
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