Post-Pandemic Hotel Transactions

Arthur Adler is president and founder of Adler Hotel Advisors, LLC. In his current capacity, he provides hotel investment and strategic advice to C-suite executives regarding acquisitions, dispositions, and expansion of both hotel real estate portfolios and brand/management companies. Mr. Adler has over 40 years of experience advising hotel owners, investors, lenders, brands, and management companies regarding all aspects of the hospitality industry.

Most recently, Mr. Adler’s was Chairman (previously CEO) of JLL’s Hotels & Hospitality Group in the Americas. Over a 20-year period, Mr. Adler grew the business from ten people in two offices to over 120 people in 12 offices across five countries and increased hotel sale and financing transaction volume to over $8 billion per year. His diverse industry background includes arranging debt and equity transactions; consulting and asset management; and strategic planning for owners, investors, management companies/brands, and lenders. Mr. Adler oversaw a business whose clients included the most prolific hotel owners and operators in the industry, including InterContinental Hotels and Resorts, The Blackstone Group, Colony Capital, Starwood Capital, Marriott International, Global Hyatt Corporation, Apollo Real Estate, Host Hotels and Resorts, Noble Investments, HEI Hotels, Pebblebrook Lodging Trust, Kingdom Holdings, Barings, Goldman Sachs, Oaktree Capital, Walton Street Capital, Brookfield, and ADIA. Selected transactions that JLL completed include the sales or financings of the St. Regis New York, Plaza New York, Standard High Line New York, Dolphin and Swan Orlando, Sheraton Phoenix, Mandarin Oriental Las Vegas (now a Waldorf Astoria), Turtle Bay Resort Oahu, Montage Laguna Beach and Beverly Hills, Four Seasons Toronto, St. Regis San Francisco, Westin Grand Central New York, Four Seasons Scottsdale, and Mandarin Oriental Boston.

Previously, Mr. Adler was Managing Director of the Lodging & Leisure Group at Sonnenblick-Goldman Company. During his diverse career, he has been a partner at Coopers & Lybrand in the Hospitality Consulting Group, a senior principal at Laventhol & Horwath, and an operations analyst for Hilton Hotels.

Mr. Adler holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell University, is a member of the Cornell Hotel Society, and has received their Distinguished Alumni Award. He was the 2016 UJA Federation of NY Hospitality Division Honoree. Mr. Adler was named the 2007 Hospitality Financial Advisor of the Year by the American Lodging Investment Summit. He is the Chairman of Cornell University’s Center for Real Estate and Finance, is a former Chairman of ULI’s Hotel Development Council, is on the board of the AH&LA Hotel Investment Roundtable, and is a member of the Dean’s Advisory Boards for both Cornell’s School of Hotel Administration and NYU’s Jonathan M. Tisch Center for Hospitality. In addition, Mr. Adler is a frequent presenter at global and domestic hotel industry conferences. He is regularly quoted in leading trade journals and has been featured as a hotel industry expert on CNNFN and in the Financial Times, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal.

As president of Hodges Ward Elliot’s (HWE) Hotel Group, Daniel C. Peek executes institutional-grade hotel and resort property transactions globally. Prior to HWE, he served as senior managing director and head of the Hospitality Practice Group for HFF, Inc. Previously, Mr. Peek co-founded Regent Street, an affiliate of The Plasencia Group (TPG), a boutique firm specializing in sale, financing, and advisory services for distinctive hotels and resorts throughout the Americas. He is a member of the Urban Land Institute and its Hotel Development Council, the AHLA Investment Roundtable, the advisory board of the Cornell Real Estate and Finance Center, and the Cornell Hotel Society. During his career, Mr. Peek has completed nearly $35 billion in investment sales, debt, and structured finance transactions.

Eva Wassermann has been actively involved in the hospitality industry for over 35 years and joined GEM in 2012 to oversee its hospitality investment platform. She divides her time equally between asset management and acquisitions and is responsible for the management of GEM’s hotel assets, working closely with Acquisitions to source investments in the lodging sector. Prior to joining GEM, Ms. Wassermann established and was the principal of State Parkway Advisory, a consulting platform providing both hotel acquisitions and asset management assistance to hotel owners. Her career includes additional engagements at Goldman Sachs and their various Whitehall Real Estate funds; Vice President of the North Central Region, Managed Development, for Hilton Hotels Corporation; Vice President at Strategic Hotels & Resorts in both asset management and acquisitions; Senior Vice President at the Yarmouth Group; and positions within the hospitality consulting group of Laventhol & Horwath.

Shai Zelering ‘01 is a managing partner with Brookfield’s Real Estate Group responsible for the hospitality sector globally, including investments, asset management, capital projects, and disposition activities. Prior to joining Brookfield in 2014, he worked in operations for various management companies and real estate investment firms. Mr. Zelering sits on the board of Center Parcs U.K., Leela Palaces in India, and Atlantis in Paradise Island.

Steven Carvell joined the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration’s finance faculty in 1986 and is currently a Professor of Finance in the SC Johnson College of Business. Over the past 33 years, he has taught undergraduate and graduate courses such as Advanced Corporate Finance, Capital Budgeting, Financial Strategy, and Investments. Dr. Carvell has also been an active teacher in executive education since 1990, working with almost every major domestic and international hotel company to create custom courses for hotel executives with companies like Hilton, Marriott, InterContinental Hotel Group, Taj Hotels, Jumeirah, Accor, Sol Melia, Le Meridien, Shangri La, and Peninsula. Dr. Carvell has also authored eight distance-learning courses through eCornell that are among the most widely demanded courses offered. He has held academic leadership positions at the School of Hotel Administration since 1999, serving as the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs from 2007 to 2016 and the Academic Director of the Pillsbury Institute for Entrepreneurship from 2013 to 2016.

Dr. Carvell has published numerous articles in academic and professional journals, including the Financial Analysts Journal, Journal of Portfolio Management, the Harvard Business Review, and the Cornell Quarterly, and he is the co-author of “In the Shadows of Wall Street.” His work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Forbes, Fortune, Institutional Investor, Financial World, and Leaders. Dr. Carvell has recently finished a major project designed to identify the determinants of hotel demand for U.S. hotels and another on economic and capital market antecedents of venture capital commitments. He is currently working on a project to disaggregate hotel room rates within urban markets and another to determine the risk-return characteristics of hotel room rates in major U.S. markets. Dr. Carvell is also involved with evaluating the effectiveness of hotel company business strategies using strategic benchmarking and economic value-added analysis.

Dr. Carvell has worked for professional money managers in the area of applied strategy in the equity market and served as a consultant to the Presidential Commission on the 1987 stock market crash. His consulting interests include valuation and risk analysis in feasibility studies, hotel debt capacity, strategic benchmarking, and corporate and financial strategy.