National Report – Blackstone Group has taken its third hotel company public in less than a year. The latest, La Quinta Holdings, began trading on the New York Stock Exchange in early April. La Quinta sold 38.25 million shares for $17 each after offering 37.2 million shares for $18 to $21 a share. It earned a reported $650 million in the IPO, according to The Associated Press. In late March, Blackstone announced it was seeking as much as $781 million in the sale, with La Quinta currently holding an estimated value of $2.1 billion.
Blackstone acquired La Quinta in January 2006 for approximately $3 billion. The firm initially expected to sell the company, and only recently opted for an initial public offering. La Quinta floated roughly 30 percent of its shares in the IPO, with Blackstone expected to retain 66.7 percent of the common stock.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley managed the offering. La Quinta joins Extended Stay America and Hilton Worldwide as the two other Blackstone-owned lodging companies to go public. ESA had its IPO in November 2013, raising $566 million. Hilton followed a month later, raising $2.34 billion, the largest hotel IPO in history. Shares of both companies have risen since their IPOs.