LOS ANGELES, Oct. 3, 2016 — sbe, the Los Angeles-based leading lifestyle hospitality company that develops, manages and operates award-winning hospitality venues, today announced that earlier this week, shareholder approval was secured for the acquisition of Morgans Hotel Group. Assuming the acquisition is completed, sbe will have a portfolio of 20 world-class lifestyle hotel properties in nine attractive gateway markets, more than 90 world-renowned entertainment and food & beverage outlets, as well as an extensive pipeline of hotels scheduled to open by 2019.

The proposed merger with sbe received the approval of approximately 71% of the outstanding shares of common stock of Morgans. Of the 25,170,480 votes cast, 24,715,378 shares, or 98%, voted in favor of the sbe merger.

"We appreciate the overwhelming support of the Morgans shareholders to approve this transaction," stated Sam Nazarian, sbe Founder and CEO. "This shareholder approval is an important step in completing the merger and we continue to make progress to close this transaction as soon as practicable. We expect that this acquisition will further drive sbe to be the preeminent global lifestyle hospitality brand."

The merger is subject to the assumption of the Morgans mortgage debt by sbe, as well as other customary closing conditions.