According to information from the Wall Street Journal, the American Blackstone Group fund is preparing to sell its La Quinta chain that it acquired in 2006 for $2.3 billion, and $800 million in debt recovery. Blackstone reportedly hired JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley the task of selecting a buyer for a price around $4.5 billion. Within 7 years, La Quinta has doubled its volume (with 805 hotels in the USA), primarily via franchising. The chain owns part of its supply, which justifies the high price asked by its current owner. Still heavily indebted since the 2006 takeover of Hilton Worldwide for $26 billion, $20 billion being debt, Blackstone succeeded in renegotiating its debt and still has formidable financial power. This allowed it to take over Motel 6 from Accor. Nevertheless, debt relief remains one of its priorities for new acquisitions and selling La Quinta, with a high value, can contribute to this. Analysts from Wall Street see this as a first step into testing the market for the sale of Hilton in the coming months or introducing it into the Stock Exchange, having been announced several times and always deferred.
United-States
