Future Hotel Acquisitions Will Not Target the Usual Suspects
Skift Take
Just because a company isn't in the business of renting out guest rooms to travelers doesn't mean they aren't attractive in the eyes of a hotel mergers-and-acquisitions team. Future hospitality M&A is going to be more creative than in prior decades.
Early Check-In
Editor’s Note: Skift Senior Hospitality Editor Sean O’Neill brings readers exclusive reporting and insights into hotel deals and development, and how those trends are making an impact across the travel industry.Leaders at some of the world’s major hotel brands may say the era of mega-mergers like Marriott and Starwood is over. That looks to be true, but watch out for deals that take on some new twists.
Hotel executives at Marriott indicated in recent months future mergers are likely to be tuck-in deals fueling expansion to targeted parts of the world. IHG Hotels & Resorts CEO Keith Barr depicted it along the lines of filling in the rungs of a ladder of necessary brands.
“First of all, you need a big checkbook to get one done,” Timothy Grisius, the global mergers and acquisitions and real estate officer at Marriott International, said this summer. “I think people are trying to keep their house in order today and make sure that they act in a financially disciplined way. There’s not a lot of need to grow even larger for a company like us. We do that organically and don’t necessarily need to buy additional brands.”
But recent dealmaking sh
