hotel finance

Access Point Financial Appoints New Senior Leadership Team to Accelerate Corporate Growth and Program Expansion

Access Point Financial | July 15, 2019

Recognized leader in hospitality-focused lending announces key appointments, including Dilip Petigara as CEO and Michael Lipson as Chairman of the Board ATLANTA – July 15, 2019 – Access Point Financial, LLC (APF), a leading direct lender and specialty finance company focused exclusively on the hospitality industry, today announced two key appointments to its senior leadership team, naming Dilip Petigara as Chief Executive Officer and Michael Lipson as Chairman of the Board of Directors. The appointments were made as part of aggressive new corporate growth initiatives put in place to meet the growing demand for financial services in th...

Sonnenblick-Eichner Company Arranges $29,000,000 of Construction Financing for Cambria Hotel Calabasas, Calabasas, California

Sonnenblick-Eichner Company | July 10, 2019

Beverly Hills, CA (July 9, 2019) – Sonnenblick-Eichner Company announced today that it has arranged $29,000,000 of construction financing for the Cambria Hotel Calabasas, a 125-room, select-service hotel to be located on Las Virgenes Road, just one block south of U.S. Highway 101/Ventura Freeway in Calabasas, CA. Amenities at the hotel will include meeting space, indoor/outdoor dining and a lobby bar, an outdoor pool, a business and fitness center, and surface parking for approximately 150 cars. The loan provided funding in excess of 65% of total project costs and was provided by an international commercial bank. The hotel’s excelle...

Attrition and Cancellation Revenue

Robert Mandelbaum | May 20, 2019

By Robert Mandelbaum Per the Uniform System of Accounts for the Lodging Industry (USALI), the income received from transient and group guests that fail to occupy a room, or cancel a reservation in the prescribed timeframe, and for which payment was guaranteed on an individual basis, is recorded as No Show Revenue in the Rooms Department. This source of revenue is frequently difficult to identify as a discrete source of income on the standard hotel operating statement format. On the other hand, the fees hotels receive from the cancellation of group meetings are typically presented as a separate line item in Miscellaneous Income. Because ...

Sonnenblick-Eichner Company Arranges $21,000,000 of First Mortgage Leasehold Financing for Palihotel Seattle, Washington

Sonnenblick-Eichner Company | May 14, 2019

Beverly Hills, CA (May 14, 2019) – Sonnenblick-Eichner Company announced today that it has arranged $21 million of non-recourse first mortgage leasehold financing, on behalf of a partnership between Los Angeles based Lighthouse Investments, LLC and KCB Management, for the 96-room Palihotel Seattle. Operated by Palisociety, the hotel is located across the street from the world-famous Pike Street Market in downtown Seattle, WA. The newly renovated hotel opened in November of 2018 and the initial funding was sized to a debt yield less than 6% on the first year's projected net operating income. The five-year interim loan also provided...

Hospitality Financial Leadership: Engage Their Hearts and Minds First

David Lund | May 13, 2019

By David Lund Getting your hotel leadership team excited about accounting is like someone thinking it's fun to go to the dentist. Your average person wants nothing to do with it because they have a predisposed notion that it's yucky, boring and better left for someone who has a hard time walking and talking at the same time. What I have learned about getting your average hotel leader excited about the numbers is just the opposite. Let me explain. Hotel leaders ALL want to have the "financial where-with-all" to dazzle their peers. They know it's the secret sauce to propel their career. They all want their seat at the captain's table. Bei...

Hospitality Financial Leadership: The Financial Forecast Disconnect and How to Correct It

David Lund | May 6, 2019

By David Lund When I work with hotel clients around their financial leadership it's often centered on getting the team to do their monthly financial forecast. A greater interest in doing it produces better and more consistent results. When doing financial leadership workshops and individual coaching, I inevitably discover the same thing time and time again. It's the disconnect between the executive team/director of finance part of the operation and the department line managers. In this piece I am going to explain why this disconnect exists, how to detect it and what you can do to fix it. First, why the disconnect exists. It exists becau...

Hospitality Financial Leadership: Investing in Financial Leadership in Your Hotel

David Lund | April 29, 2019

By David Lund CFO to CEO: "What happens if we invest in developing people and they leave?" CEO: "What happens if we don't and they stay?" I found this exchange in, of all places, the internet. Go figure. It's an interesting back and forth that I know plays out in many organizations. Investing in anything training related in business is tricky. Not only when it comes to the money and resources it takes, but it's also the matter of finding the appropriate training. I also believe one of the biggest stumbling blocks to creating and investing in a culture where we train and develop our leaders continually, is the ability to have it result i...

Hospitality Financial Leadership: Nobody Gets to Be Wrong, Everyone is Wrong, No One Gets to Be Right, Everyone is Right

David Lund | April 15, 2019

By David Lund I use this quote to start many of my workshops. To me it's the way I want the participants to stand in their individual power during our time together. It's also how I see our industry. In the hotel business we all need to have an opinion and even more important we need to be able to share those thoughts. Reason being is, we all have something important to bring to the table. That's what I tell my workshop participants. To illustrate this, I often ask the following question. "What would you rather have to increase your GOP in your 300-room hotel that is currently operating at 75% occupancy with a $150 average rate, a $4 ro...