Noble closes third hotel fund

Atlanta-based Noble Investment Group has closed a new vehicle on more then $310 million (€235 million) to invest in the North American hotel sector.

Noble Hospitality Fund, which received commitments from seven institutional investors, is the group’s third private equity real estate vehicle. With leverage, the current fund will have more the fund will acquire more than $1 billion in hotels.

According to a press statement, Noble’s hotel portfolio had an average increase in revenue per available room, a popular industry metric, of 15.9 percent last year, which they say is more than twice the industry average.

“The Noble fund has a disciplined focus on acquiring, developing and redeveloping first-class, premium-branded full-service and select-service hotels and resorts located throughout North America,” Rodney Williams, the firm’s chief executive officer and a managing principal at the fund, said in a statement. He added that the firm looks at mixed-use properties, public/private developments and adaptive reuse hospitality projects.

Last year, Noble acquired the Westin hotel in Long Beach, California; a Sheraton in Atlanta that is being redeveloped into a W hotel; and the Adams Mark Hotel in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, which is being redeveloped into two new hotels, a Marriott and an Embassy Suites.

The firm is also developing a number of hotels, including the Raleigh Center Marriott and a property in a mixed-use development in Charlotte, North Carolina.  

Noble closed its first fund in November of 1994 on $40 million. Its second fund, which had a value-added, US-focused strategy, closed in 2003 on $182 million.