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14 October 2012

Buying a hotel — the Hotel Purchase Agreement documentation and process.

The Hotel Purchase Agreement documentation and process is where fortunes can be won or lost. The hotel lawyers of JMBM’s Global Hospitality Group® have decided to share some practical tips we have gleaned over the past 25 years from more than $87 billion of hotel transactions. Initially, these insights will be published as articles on the Hotel Law Blog at www.HotelLawyer.com and then they will be assembled into the HOW TO BUY A HOTEL handbook for our “We wrote the book™” series, much like the HMA Handbook and the Lenders Handbook for Troubled Hotels (see Resource Center at HotelLawyer.com for free copies).

Here is our next contribution to the “Buying a Hotel” series. . . It is a new topic that every buyer should be aware of and consider as part of the due diligence on buying a hotel.


What you don’t know about undocumented workers
could really hurt you!

by
Guy Maisnik | Vice Chair, Global Hospitality Group®

Let’s say you are buying a hotel. You have engaged the right legal and due diligence team. One of the items your team is investigating is whether the hotel employees are legally documented. Upon review of the hotel records, your team discovers that there is a fairly high turnover of hourly workers. You know the challenge of attracting and retaining enough good workers.

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29 August 2012

JMBM’s Chinese Investment Group® has been very busy the past few years. Our team of lawyers represents the interests of Chinese investors who are purchasing or building hotels in the United States. We also represent hotel developers seeking to take advantage of the inbound foreign investment to capitalize their projects — whether through the EB-5 investment program or foreign direct investment.

In the EB-5 area alone, we have worked on more than 40 projects under the EB-5 investment visa program throughout the U.S., most of which are projects made possible with Chinese investment capital.

Here is a recap of some current events involving our Chinese Investment Group® and Chinese investors.

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Click here for the latest articles on EB-5 Financing. 

 

On June 21, 2002 Guy Maisnik will be a featured speaker at the 2nd Chinese Investment and EB-5 Finance Forum in Los Angeles.

This Conference is designed for everyone interested in taking advantage of foreign investment from China “inbound” for U.S. real estate. It features some of the most knowledgeable and respected experts in the country on this subject and will facilitate foreign investors and capital sources networking with U.S. real estate professionals, developers, and owners.

Guy Maisnik, an industry veteran with nearly 30 years of real estate and hospitality experience, will provide practical tips and insights from lessons learned in representing Chinese investors in the U.S. Maisnik says, “The more you understand the nature of your investors, their concerns and the issues, the greater your chances for success with your transactions.”

Maisnik is a vice chair and a senior member of JMBM’s Global Hospitality Group® and Chinese Investment Group®, and is also a member of and is involved in more than 40 Chinese investments in the U.S. — EB-5 or otherwise. Maisnik notes that “Chinese investors are particularly interested in hotel and related hospitality investment as well as broader classes of real estate.”
For more information on Chinese investment and EB-5, please click here or go to: https://hotellaw.jmbm.com/eb5_financing.

For more information on the 2nd Chinese Investment and EB-5 Finance Forum, click here or go to :
http://www.attractasianinvestors.com/index.html.

Come join Guy at the Forum and take advantage of this opportunity.
Embassy Suites Los Angeles International Airport/North
9:00 am – 4:30 pm
June 21, 2012
Register Now

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29 May 2012

HotelLawyer.com launches

Portal to knowledge for the hospitality industry

JMBM’s Global Hospitality Group® hotel lawyers launch comprehensive hospitality resource
LOS ANGELES — May 29, 2012. Jim Butler, Chairman of the Global Hospitality Group® at Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell LLP (JMBM) announced today that the Group has officially launched HotelLawyer.com, a comprehensive resource for the hospitality industry.

“JMBM’s Global Hospitality Group® is known for providing useful information, thoughtful analysis and a refreshing perspective to legal and business issues that affect the industry,” said Butler. “Our rich library of industry information is now organized in one convenient place — at HotelLawyer.com.”

On HotelLawyer.com, readers will find nearly 500 articles published over the years on the Hotel Law Blog, and the first two books in the We Wrote the Book™ series (The Lenders Handbook for Troubled Hotels and The HMA Handbook: Hotel Management Agreements for Owners, Developers, Investors and Lenders). These FREE resources continue to be accessed by thousands of readers each month.

Also available without cost at HotelLawyer.com are presentations from industry leaders, such as those given at JMBM’s 2012 Meet the Money® conference by Suzanne Mellen of HVS, Bruce Baltin of PKF Consulting, Greg Hartmann of Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels and Alan Reay of Atlas Hospitality Group.

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22 May 2012

At JMBM’s recent hotel finance conference in Los Angeles, a panel of experts talked about how well joint ventures are working to provide financing for hotel development and acquisitions.

The hotel joint venture experts

The Joint Venture Panel from Meet the Money® 2012 featured 5 veteran hotel investors and operating partners, and was moderated by Guy Maisnik, hotel lawyer and Vice Chair of JMBM’s Global Hospitality Group®. The panelists were:

Picture of Guy Maisnik Guy Maisnik, Vice Chair, JMBM’s Global Hospitality Group® works extensively on hotel joint ventures and financings, as well as acquisitions.

  • Mark Burden, CEO, Rim Hospitality
  • Lamont Meek, SVP and COO, Circa Capital
  • Rick Frank, SVP Hospitality, Behringer Harvard
  • Jonathan Martin, VP, AEW Capital Management
  • Kam Babaoff, Managing Director, Ensemble Hotel Partners

Each of these participants has a long history of investing in and operating hotels, and they represent the spectrum of views currently prevailing in the industry. While each has been successful, each has taken a different road to achieve success. The individual strategies and approaches of each stands out, as does the talent and vision necessary to navigate some of the toughest years in the hotel industry.

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13 March 2012

Hotel investment through buying hotel notes As the economy and hotel fundamentals continue to improve, hotel note purchase opportunities will be one of the most attractive hotel investments for savvy investors.

My partner and Vice Chair of our Global Hospitality Group®, Guy Maisnik, has been working a lot on note purchases lately, and I asked him to share some insights with us, which he graciously consented to do with his article today.

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15 October 2011

Hotel Lawyer from CMBS Special Servicer heaven with the latest insights from the Dallas Lenders Conference

For 11 years now, Steve Van and his team at Prism Hotels have held what is probably the best lender conference in the country. Attendance is by invitation only. The one-day program is attended by industry leaders and about 100 of the Who’s Who of the hotel lending world. If you are a special servicer, you want to be at this meeting. The convocation has swelled in size from about 35 at the first meeting, but Steve resists all the temptations to grow too large so that this remains an informal meeting place for serious dialog and candid discussion.

Generally, the conference delegates include the top people from the major special servicers, such as Midland Loan Services, C-III Asset Management, CW Capital, Berkadia Commercial Mortgage, ORIX Capital Markets, KeyBank Real Estate Capital, Bank of America and the like – all the people you would like to see but never find at the major investment conferences. The sessions are highly interactive, more akin to think tank sessions and sharing of experiences and concerns than the typical conference lecture format.

I was privileged to lead a panel of thought leaders on “Trends in Hotel Loan Sales,” and Guy Maisnik (my partner and vice chair of our Global Hospitality Group®) spoke on the panel “Special Servicers Survival Guide for Loan Defaults – CMBS 201: What has changed?”
Here are some highlights of the meeting that I thought were noteworthy . . .

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20 September 2011

Hotel Lawyer at the Phoenix Lodging Conference: Where are we going from here?

The Lodging Conference kicks off tonight at the Arizona Biltmore as roughly 1,500 hotel industry leaders gather for the next 3 days. This is one of my favorite hotel finance conferences of the year, and JMBM’s Global Hospitality Group® will be well represented. Senior GHG members Guy Maisnik, Cathy Holmes, Bob Braun, David Sudeck and I will all be here.

Aside from the great connections and catching up, the one thing everyone at this conference will be looking for is some sense on what happens to the hospitality industry from here. The first part of the year was robust transactionally speaking, with lots of hotels changing hands and pretty good financing for established hotels with good cash flow. But it seems like everyone got spooked a little in late August about the time Congress was deadlocked on a budget. Then the U.S. credit rating was downgraded, and the European debt crisis has continued to foment trouble, initially focused on Greece, but now more on Italy with its credit rating decrease, with concerned looks toward Spain and elsewhere.

On the one hand, one can argue that all this should have no affect on the hotel industry, at least in the United States. But the markets are unsettled and everyone seems to be taking a second look before they continue with business as it was earlier this year. And of course, the lodging industry has a long-term direct correlation with the economy. So, if the increasing pessimism pointing to an impending recession wins the day, we are all in for a bumpy ride.

I will be very interested to measure the mood of The Lodging Conference this year, and see how everyone else is viewing the current situation. Do we catch our breath and continue from roughly where we were, or do we hold our breath and get ready for a roller coaster ride? I may have some more insights for you shortly.

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31 August 2011

Hotel Lenders: Do you know how due diligence for hotel lending differs from due diligence for other commercial real estate lending? More expertise, more time, more resources.

We have seen far too many hotel lenders “who don’t know what they don’t know” when underwriting a hotel loan, but then get a very expensive education post foreclosure. The due diligence required in hotel lending is far more intensive than for any other kind of real estate lending and requires far more expertise. The article below by my partner Guy Maisnik gives a few examples.

If you would like a refresher as to why hotel lending is different from other kinds of real estate lending, you may want to refer to (see, Why hotel lending is different and 8 pitfalls of hotel lending and how to avoid them).

Please see the links at the end of this article for other articles in the “What every hotel lender needs to know” series.

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24 August 2011

Hotel Lenders: Will you control the revenues of your hotel after foreclosure? Are you sure? What could go wrong? A lot can go wrong with lender expectations in a hotel loan unless the hotel loan documents are prepared by knowledgeable hotel lending lawyers.

In today’s blog post, Guy Maisnik highlights the importance of the hotel lender keeping control over revenues post foreclosure, and explains why it doesn’t always happen.

If you would like a refresher as to why hotel lending is different from other kinds of real estate lending, you may want to refer to (see, Why hotel lending is different and 8 pitfalls of hotel lending and how to avoid them).

Please see the links at the end of this article for other articles in the “What every hotel lender needs to know” series.

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Contact Information
Jim Butler, Chairman
Global Hospitality Group®
Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell LLP
(310) 201-3526 • jbutler@jmbm.com
www.HotelLawyer.com

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