Articles Posted in Meet the Money®

07 May 2015

Meet the Money® 2015 – Information, deals, reflection, and celebration
Conference presentations now available

JMBM’s Meet the Money® 2015, held at the Sheraton LAX in Los Angeles, wrapped up its 25th national hotel finance and investment conference this week. The hotel lawyers in JMBM’s Global Hospitality Group were fortunate to celebrate such a significant milestone (25 years!) at a time when the hotel industry is breaking all-time records – RevPar, Occupancy, Rooms Sold, Room Revenue, Transaction Value, you name it.

Hotel fundamentals are strong, interest rates rate are low, demand is strong, and hotel investors are happy! There was general consensus that the good times will continue for at least another year or two, and some think it could last even longer. It was truly a great pleasure to hear about all of the profitable and creative deals that are going on.

While everyone acknowledged that it’s a great time to be in the hotel industry, there was plenty of healthy reflection about lessons learned from the Great Recession as well as discussion about preparing for the inevitable downside of the current cycle.  Our speakers – a Who’s Who of the hotel world – represented an experienced and disciplined approach to hotel finance and investment.

You can read more about the conference in the column written by Stefani C. O’Connor in Hotel Business: With Eye to Horizon, Industry Optimism Remains at Meet the Money Conference.

Select Presentations Now Available for Free Download

We are pleased to share with you some of the presentations from the conference. To view a list of presentations, go to Hotel Industry Presentations on HotelLawyer.com.

Individual presentations include: CONTINUE READING →

05 May 2015

The 2015 LIIC Top Ten: Hotel Investors Bask in Rare & Glorious Sunshine

Each year at Meet the Money® – the national hotel finance and investment conference, Mike Cahill announces the “LIIC Top Ten” – a profile of investment sentiment and attitudes for the hotel industry that is gathered through an annual survey of the Lodging Industry Investment Council (LIIC). LIIC is the hotel industry think tank whose members own or operate billions of dollars of hotel investments and involves all aspects of the industry. In fact, 60% of LIIC hotel owners successfully purchased a hotel in the last 12 months, and 47% currently have additional acquisitions under a purchase and sale contract.

Along with Mike Cahill of Hospitality Real Estate Advisors (HREC) and Sean Hennessey of Lodging Investment Advisors, I am pleased to be one of the co-chairs of LIIC. I am grateful to Mike Cahill for analyzing the survey results which result in the annual LIIC Top Ten.

Mike reported that the 2015 survey resulted in the most positive outlook of the hotel industry for the foreseeable future, since the LIIC surveys began!  Yes, there are concerns – the interest rate environment, the strength of the dollar, new supply among others – but for now, expectations are being met or exceeded, and LIIC members expect more of the same in the near future.

Appropriately titled, “Carpe Diem: Hotel Investors Bask in Rare & Glorious Sunshine,” you can click here to see Mike’s presentation. You will find it interesting. CONTINUE READING →