June 07–Blackstone Group LP has reached an agreement to sell the leasehold interests in the Hyatt Regency Waikiki Beach Resort and Spa for $800 million to Mirae Asset Global Investments, according to sources close to the deal.
The deal will bring total investment in Hawaii to more than $1 billion for Mirae, a Seoul-based asset management company. The firm also purchased the 540-room Fairmont Orchid Hotel in May 2015 for $220 million.
"For Mirae to spend that kind of money in Hawaii in just a year's span makes a big statement about their bullishness on the local market," said Joseph Toy, president and CEO of hotel consultancy Hospitality Advisors LLC. "This is a very sophisticated, savvy company, and they are making a pretty significant bet."
The transaction will fetch about $650,000 for each of the property's 1,230 rooms. Toy said the price is below the so-called per-room-key transaction record set in 2014 when the Kahala Hotel &Resort sold for $300 million, or roughly $887,000 a key. Still, Toy said, it represents extremely high returns for Blackstone in a market where private equity funds are generally satisfied with 25 percent yields.
Blackstone spent $445 million to acquire the leasehold interest in Hyatt Regency Waikiki in 2013 and quickly embarked on a plan to invest $100 million in upgrades into the property, which opened about four decades ago. The majority of the land under the hotel is owned by the Steiner Family Trust.
Now Blackstone is selling the hotel for nearly double what it paid for it and will have achieved more than a 45 percent gain after renovation costs are deducted.
"That's a pretty good return on a 40-year-old leasehold property," said Waikiki-based real estate analyst Stephany Sofos. "A lot of people are seeing premiums on everything in Waikiki from the hotels and shopping centers to the small studios. Everyone wants a piece of Waikiki, and we've got a finite market to drive the prices up even more."
Sofos said the premium price indicates that Mirae envisions future rewards.
"This deal is sort of like the Royal Hawaiian Center, another leasehold that sold for a pretty good premium," Sofos said. "Like Blackstone and the Hyatt, the Royal Hawaiian Center's owner Kamehameha Schools invested big bucks on renovations. In these cases the buyer doesn't have to worry about immediate construction. Instead, they are looking at raising rates and getting service and reaping the benefits."
Sofos said she knows of several cases where real estate buyers, who were criticized for paying premiums in Hawaii's frenetic market, achieved strong gains. The 2003 sale of the Damon Estate's 220 acres of light industrial land in Mapunapuna for $466.1 million drew criticism, she said.
"The real estate trust that bought the estate paid over $80 a square foot when the going rate was about $50 to $60 per square foot. But look at them now: The last industrial sales were over $300 a square foot," Sofos said. "If you believe in a strong future, sometimes you have to bite the bullet on price."
Likewise, Sofos said some analysts called General Growth Properties "crazy" when it paid $230 million for 60 acres of Victoria Ward. "Everyone said that's a crazy premium. But they had a vision, and look at them today: They are sitting on prime urban property," she said.
Keith Vieira, principal of KV &Associates Hospitality Consulting LLC, said the premium pricing probably ties back to the property's redevelopment potential. Vieira said Blackstone successfully renovated the hotel room portion but pulled back on its retail development plans, leaving Mirae an opportunity to forge its own. Mirae also could redevelop the Hyatt's parking garage into a hotel, timeshare or resort condominium tower, he said.
"No one has touched the corner with the parking garage, which in my view is an incredible waste of ocean-view property," Vieira said. "We need to add room capacity to Waikiki. There are less rooms today than there were years ago."
Waikiki had 53,000 hotel rooms in 2003, but that number had dwindled to 42,000 by 2013, he said.
"There are no guarantees that development could occur at that location," Vieira said. "But economically, adding more hotel rooms to Waikiki is the responsible thing to do to grow tourism. In the 1990s we had golf courses and some sugar and pineapple. Now there's nothing beyond tourism and the military, which without Sen. Daniel K. Inouye is a concern."
Mirae, which was founded in 1997 in the wake of the Asian currency crisis, isn't talking about the coming Hyatt investment. But the Seoul-based asset manager, which has a presence in 12 countries across five continents, has been diversifying its portfolio into high-end hotel deals.
Since 2011 the firm has invested in the 317-room Four Seasons Hotel Seoul, the 531-room Four Seasons Hotel Sydney and the 282-room Courtyard by Marriott Seoul Pangyo. The company's U.S. holdings beyond Hawaii include the 599-room Fairmont San Francisco Hotel, which it bought for $450 million in November.
Eric Gill, financial secretary-treasurer for Unite Here Local 5, said the hotel workers union is becoming familiar with Mirae through its dealings in San Francisco. Gill said Mirae is required to assume the Hyatt Regency Waikiki's union contract, which provides rights to some 500 workers.
"At this point I don't think that there is any cause for concern among our members," Gill said.
