Ashford Hospitality Trust, Inc. AHTannounced that it has sold Residence Inn Tampa Downtown in Tampa, FL. This 109-room property was sold for $24 million or $220,000 per key.
As of Mar 31, 2018, the hotel’s EBITDA multiple of 11.8x and a 12-month trailing cap rate of 7.6% on its net operating income was represented in the sales price.
Further, revenues per available room achieved by the hotel for the 12-month period (ended Mar 31, 2018) was $122, with occupancy of 76%. The average daily rate was $161.
The Residence Inn Tampa’s standing-debt balance of $19.5 million was settled prior to closing. Additionally, the debt pay-down amount of $2.9 million, relating to the release of the hotel from the loan pool, was paid off too.
Notably, the company has opted to be a net seller and has not acquired any hotels since 2015. In fact, the company has sold about $350 million of hotels over this period. During first-quarter 2018, Ashford Hospitality sold SpringHill Suites Glen Allen for $10.9 million and towards the end of the quarter, it also disposed SpringHill Suites Centreville for $7.5 million.
The President and chief executive officer of Ashford Trust, Douglas A. Kessler informed, "The Residence Inn Tampa transaction demonstrates our value-added approach given pricing was at an attractive cap rate compared with our current market valuation." He also feels that the above-mentioned sale is in sync with the company’s efforts to improve returns for shareholders, using their strategies of investing opportunistically in upper-upscale, full-service hotels in the hospitality industry.
Encouragingly, in the past year, this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) stock has outperformed the industry. While the company’s shares have gained 26.2%, the industry has recorded 2.7% rise.