Blackstone Group is going to acquire three large hotels from a consortium led by Paulson & Co. for US$1.2 billion, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
While the deal has not been confirmed by either party, people familiar with the matter said the hotels in the deal are the Ritz-Carlton and JW Marriott in Orlando, Florida, and the JW Marriott in Phoenix (Desert Ridge). The hotels combined have more than 2,500 rooms, about 472,000 square feet (43,850 square meters) of meeting space and 54 holes of golf on 800 acres (324 hectares).
The sale marks the end of the CNL Hotels & Resorts portfolio of hotels that Paulson, Winthrop Realty Trust and Capital Trust took over through a 2011 foreclosure.
Capital Trust and Winthrop were original lenders to the Morgan Stanley real estate fund that owned CNL. Paulson bought about US$150 million of debt for around US$10 million in 2010, according to the Wall Street Journal sources.