1 February 2010
Please see “troubled hotel loans – workouts, bankruptcies & receiverships” for the latest articles on troubled hotels.
Hotel Lawyers with grim reports from the field. If lenders are looking for some encouraging news on their distressed hotel asset sales prospects, they are not going to get it anytime soon. That is what the Atlas 2009 Year End Hotel Survey shows, but it does offer some valuable tips for dealing with continued distress in 2010.
Here is an executive summary.
31 January 2010
Hotel Lawyer: A new realism settles on the hotel industry. We’ve already given up 2010 and 2011 won’t be that much better . . . then a long, slow “jobless recovery.”
“Realism” was the defining word for the ALIS conference held in San Diego on January 25-27, 2010. ALIS attendance was roughly half or less of last year, and the experts officially declared 2009 one of the worst years for the hospitality industry. They have already thrown in the towel on the industry for 2010, and look to an anemic 2011, with double digit growth in RevPAR after that . . . but we are so far down the hole now, that even double digit RevPAR growth will take years to reclaim the levels enjoyed in 2005-2007.
So what does this portend for lenders? And what is the smart money doing now?
01 October 2009
Please see “troubled hotel loans – workouts, bankruptcies & receiverships” for the latest articles on troubled hotels.
Our national hotel practice focuses on being the legal and business advisors for lenders, borrowers and investors. With the hotel industry suffering a record-breaking collapse of revenues and no immediate relief in sight, everyone is starting to examine available options.
1 September 2009
This is one of many articles on the subject of “troubled hotel loans – workouts, bankruptcies & receiverships” in the rich library at www.HotelLawBlog.com.
Do the math yourself! Run a present value analysis of likely cash flows on 3 alternate scenarios. Decide whether you have the stamina and capital for a long haul if you intend to hold.
Hotel Lawyer. As a hotel owner or lender with a distressed property in the worst business environment for more than 70 years, you have a decision to make. Do you sell the hotel now at a deep discount, or do you hold on for things to get better? How long does it take to market a property in this environment?
Owners and lenders of thousands of hotels in the United States and abroad are confronted with this decision. Here are a few thoughts from the pros.
9 August 2009
Please see “troubled hotel loans – workouts, bankruptcies & receiverships” for the latest articles on troubled hotels.
Hotel closings: Hotel Lawyer with another look at alternatives to closing that hotel.
We have gotten a lot of feedback on our recent article about the precipitous drop in value that accompanies a hotel closing, or as some say, when the hotel is “put in mothballs” or “goes dark”. See Closing that hotel may be the worst money-saving idea you ever had! Lenders, here’s why mothballing a hotel can be a very bad idea.
In that recent article, we talked about 8 bad things that happen when you close a hotel, and suggested that a hotel should never be closed without first running a careful analysis of cash flows and holding costs. That is not to say, a hotel should never be closed, but a hotel closing deserves close scrutiny, and full exploration of the alternatives.
Today, we will focus on one of those.
3 August 2009
Please see “troubled hotel loans – workouts, bankruptcies & receiverships” for the latest articles on troubled hotels.
Hotel lawyer with another perspective on closing a money-losing hotel. Sometimes there seem to be no alternatives. You can’t beg, borrow or steal more capital to advance in order to meet operating costs to keep a hotel open. A stubborn union won’t relent of ruinous work rules, or an operator won’t reduce staffing and facilities to reflect depressed occupancies.
And initially it seems like a fire sale liquidation of a failed hotel is a poor alternative to suspending operations until the hotel market returns to some sense or normalcy. Many lenders will be shocked to learn how dramatically hotel values can crash — literally over night — once a hotel is closed. Here is some food for thought.
21 April 2009
Please see “troubled hotel loans – workouts, bankruptcies & receiverships” for the latest articles on troubled hotels.
Hospitality Lawyer: Distressed hotel loan bankruptcies and restructurings are on the rise. Now we are starting to see some new issues tested. As The Great Recession of 2008 continues to set record unemployment levels and send shockwaves through the economy, hotel bankruptcies are on the rise. Sure a lot of lenders are tending to extend maturities, work out forbearance restructurings or go for uncontested receiverships, but we are starting to see some bankruptcy filings as well.
And just as the economy is in “uncharted waters,” some loan structuring terms or approaches that were developed in the 1990s have not been fully tested, if at all, by a severe downturn or serious litigation. One of those devices that has been quite popular is the use of a “special purpose entity” or SPE.
16 April 2009
Please see “troubled hotel loans – workouts, bankruptcies & receiverships” for the latest articles on troubled hotels.
Hotel Lawyer with the latest data on commercial real estate loan maturities and some important implications — Why you need to know all about CMBS Special Servicers and how to meet them!
My friend, Michael Murray at MBA Newslink, published a story this morning with some startling numbers. According to the Mortgage Bankers Association (or MBA), $90.5 billion of CMBS debt comes due this year! And that is only part of the story.
14 April 2009
Please see “troubled hotel loans – workouts, bankruptcies & receiverships” for the latest articles on troubled hotels.
Hotel Lawyer: Hotel borrower dilemma: the note is in default or coming due. Do you fight the land war in Asia or find a way to make love (not war)? This is the first article in a series of two about how lenders and borrowers need to work outside the box to accomplish their objectives in this down market. Today’s article focuses on the borrower perspective, and the next one will be on the lender perspective. I encourage lenders to read this article, and borrowers to read the lender article. There is a win-win here for many players. We have some ideas you may never have considered before.
2 April 2009
Please see “troubled hotel loans – workouts, bankruptcies & receiverships” for the latest articles on troubled hotels.
How do you terminate a long-term hotel management agreement or HMA? The hotel bankruptcy trump card. This is an increasingly popular question regularly put to the hotel lawyers of JMBM’s Global Hospitality Group®.