2.5 Evolution in hospitality financing
During the 1990-1991 recession, the hotel industry suffered from low occupancy rates,
having overbuilt room inventory in the late 1980s (Hotel & Motel Management, 1994).
Recovery had begun by late 1992 and the industry became profitable again in 1993
(Block, 1998). Along with improved profitability and performance, renovations of guest
rooms, restaurants, meeting rooms, lobbies, and other public spaces were initiated using
available cash flow and, more importantly, funding from increased institutional
investment (Hotel & Motel Management, 1994). As a result, pension funds and life
insurance companies became major sources of direct-equity capital for lodging real
estate, while mutual funds, pension funds, and life insurance companies became the
largest purchasers of lodging company stocks (Singh and Kwansa, 1999). Singh and
Kwansa (1999) suggested that changes in the minimum loan sizes offered by financial
institutions are clear indications of the competitive landscape that is expected to prevail.
The overall differences in minimum loans between large, intermediate, and small lenders
have been progressively narrowing. For example, small lenders can provide a minimum
of US$1 million while large lenders will offer US$5-10 million. Different types of financial
institutions can finance different types or modes of hospitality firms. For example, resort
hotels have a high probability of borrowing from large lenders, given the expected
growth in spending on fitness, leisure, and recreation. Life insurance companies and
pension funds have a high to moderate probability of financing convention hotels, but a
relatively low chance of being involved in casino hotels due to overbuilding, high cost of
construction, and a preference to wait for more states to legalize gaming (Singh and
Kwansa, 1999). Singh and Kwansa’s prediction for casino hotel financing underestimated
the growth potential of the casino (hotel) industry; the notion of “if you build it, they will
come” seems to have held since the mid-1990s.
The importance of private funding in the marketplace is expected to continue
playing an important role in hospitality capital (Elgonemy, 2002). For example, in the
casino industry, Harrah’s was acquired for US$15.05 billion in 2006 by a private-equity
firm owned by Apollo Advisors and TPG Capital. This was followed in 2007 by Station
Casinos’ US$5.4 billion management-led buyout. In the hotel industry, one major
buyout was that of the Four Seasons Hotels, which was taken private in 2007 by
Cascade Investment and Kingdom Hotels in a deal worth almost US$4 billion. Issues
related to the operations, management, and performance of these firms after the
buyouts have not yet been examined, so there is a need for such evaluation. The
importance of institutional investors to the hospitality industry has been heightened
because they now control a significant portion of lodging, restaurant, and casino equity
(Hotel & Motel Management, 2002; Tsai, 2005; Tsai and Gu, 2007a; Tsai and Gu,
2007b). Continuing support from institutional investors can be expected, and their
involvement and interactions with firms and their management could be investigated
further, as could the possibility of differences in ownership structures and involvement
in management and corporate governance in countries and regions other than the USA.
3. Hospitality investing
Activities related to hospitality investing can be examined from two perspectives, namely
the firm and its investors, although a majority of published studies focus on the latter.
From a firm perspective, research has provided capital budgeting guides, practices, and
benchmark comparisons (Guilding and Lamminmaki, 2007; Rubelj, 2006; Guilding and