LaSalle Hotel Properties selling Hotel Viking in Newport

NEWPORT'S HOTEL VIKING is being sold by LaSalle Hotel Properties for $77 million to an undisclosed buyer. LaSalle bought the 98-year-old hotel in 1999 for $27 million. / PBN FILE PHOTO/STEPHANIE ALVAREZ EWENS
NEWPORT'S HOTEL VIKING is being sold by LaSalle Hotel Properties for $77 million to an undisclosed buyer. LaSalle bought the 98-year-old hotel in 1999 for $27 million. / PBN FILE PHOTO/STEPHANIE ALVAREZ EWENS

(Update, Sept. 12, 2014, 12:11 p.m.)
Hotel Viking’s general manager Mark Gervais said the new owner closed on the property on Wednesday. He described the owner as a private equity firm, adding it does not want to be identified. Gervais said the current management company, Noble House, which has been with Hotel Viking for 15 years, will remain.

NEWPORT – The Hotel Viking may soon have a new owner.
LaSalle Hotel Properties, based in Maryland, announced this week that it has entered into a contract to sell the hotel for $77 million.
LaSalle did not disclose the buyer, but said in a press release that the transaction is expected to be finalized this week. A call to a representative at LaSalle was not immediately returned.
The company purchased the hotel in 1999 for $27 million.
Michael D. Barnello, president and CEO of LaSalle Hotel Properties, said in a statement that Hotel Viking “was an excellent long-term investment for us. Upon closing, the asset will have delivered an unleveraged (internal rate of return) of 10.7 percent and an average cash-on-cash yield of 8.6 percent over 15 years.”
Transaction proceeds will be used to reduce borrowings on the company’s senior unsecured credit facility.
Once this transaction is completed, LaSalle will own 44 hotels. The company focuses on owning, redeveloping and repositioning upscale, full-service hotels located in urban, resort and convention markets.
Hotel Viking, according to its website, is a member of the Historic Hotels of America. It opened in 1926, two years after a fundraising campaign by residents who saw the need for a grand hotel to keep pace with the economic growth in Newport.
The year LaSalle took over, a $3 million renovation began to return the Georgian Colonial hotel to its original splendor. In 2003, a $5 million renovation included the Viking Ballroom, and in 2007, the original Viking guest rooms were renovated in a $6.8 million project.

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