Geolo Capital Agrees to Sell Two Roads Hospitality to Hyatt Hotels

Geolo Capital, the private equity investment arm of the John A. Pritzker family office, announced an agreement to sell Two Roads Hospitality, the international lifestyle hotel management company, to Hyatt Hotels Corporation. Under the terms of the transaction, all of Two Roads’ hotel brands — Alila Hotels & Resorts, Destination Hotels, Joie de Vivre Hotels, Thompson Hotels and tommie — will join Hyatt’s global portfolio. Hyatt will also assume management of Geolo’s stable of iconic properties including: Carmel Valley Ranch, Ventana Big Sur, The Chicago Athletic Association Hotel, Thompson Seattle and The Beekman, A Thompson Hotel in New York. The sale is the culmination of nine years of steady investments and growth by Geolo, which specializes in hospitality, real estate and lifestyle industries. Geolo, which made its first hotel purchase in 2009 with the acquisition of Carmel Valley Ranch, rapidly grew its portfolio of owned properties and also created Two Roads Hospitality together with Lowe Hospitality Group, Inc. Two Roads has grown to become the leading global hospitality management company with over 85 properties across eight countries, representing $2 billion in total property revenues under management.

“The agreement to sell Two Roads Hospitality is a testament to the success of its brands and its remarkable associates and is a truly exciting and meaningful milestone for Geolo,” said John Pritzker, founding partner and director of Geolo Capital. “In the span of nine years, we’ve had the pleasure to build an extraordinary global lifestyle hospitality company. As co-owner and founder, our first responsibility was to ensure we found the best home for our employees and the dynamic portfolio of hotels we managed around the world. After a thoughtful review, we determined Hyatt would be the best steward of Two Roads and its managed properties. Hyatt is a world-class operator with unparalleled distribution, brand recognition and management structure that will enable Two Roads to further thrive in today’s global market.”

“We’re very proud of what we have accomplished since we first began making hospitality investments nine years ago,” said Thomas Gottlieb, co-founder and managing general partner of Geolo Capital. “Now, we have an exciting opportunity to explore new challenges. We plan to continue being active investors in the industry we love, and we intend to redeploy the capital from this sale into lifestyle real estate, especially hospitality and multi-family.”

Geolo has created a multi-billion-dollar portfolio of premier projects, including ground-up developments, complex adaptive-reuse projects and historical restorations within the urban, boutique, resort, multi-family residential and traditional hospitality space. Highly anticipated Geolo projects currently under development include: the Thompson Hotel in Washington D.C., slated to open in 2020, and a $300+ million-dollar project in Austin, Texas, that will feature both Thompson and tommie hotels, and multi-family residential. Additionally, Geolo has identified and is pursuing new multi-family residential and hospitality project opportunities overseas and in major U.S. markets such as the Bay Area.

While Geolo will no longer be a principal shareholder of Two Roads Hospitality, it will remain the largest owner of hotels managed by Hyatt. Comprised of Joie de Vivre Hotels, Thompson Hotels, Destination Hotels, tommie and Alila Hotels & Resorts, Two Roads Hospitality is a global operator of independent, boutique and lifestyle hotels, resorts and vacation residences. The company was created in 2016 when Commune Hotels and Resorts, a Geolo owned company, merged with Destination Hotels, a Lowe Hospitality Group, Inc. company, establishing Two Roads as the largest global collection of lifestyle hospitality brands. Prior to the merger, Geolo had acquired Joie de Vivre in 2010, and then formed Commune Hotels, which subsequently acquired Thompson Hotels in 2013 and Alila Hotels in 2014.