Columbus, Ohio-based hospitality investment firm Rockbridge is coming up on its 25th anniversary in 2024, a feat that CEO and co-founder Jimmy Merkel said is “a big deal.”
The Rockbridge team of more than 100 employees is tight-knit and has a great culture, Merkel said. It’s something the firm has had to lean on in tough times over the past several years.
“We like what we do, which is fortunate because it’s been really hard over the last couple of years,” he said. “[Last year] was one of the hardest years in our industry from a work standpoint. We’re doing well, we’re doing well relative to our projects, but it was just a grind.”
Getting a deal done in the current hotel transaction environment requires being selective, completing due diligence and using the company’s experience to its fullest advantage, he said.
“The cost of capital is high, and the debt yields are high on a relative basis, so that makes putting transactions together that drive equity returns that are competitive with other investments very difficult,” he said, adding investors must “place [their] bets in the right spot.”
This year, Rockbridge is focused on controlling what it can control and letting the rest of the variables play out, Merkel said.
“We can’t control the Fed. We can’t control the transaction environment. We can’t control a seller and whether they're willing to sell it to us at a price we can create value,” he said. “We can control how we’re doing business, we can improve our processes [and] we can make sure we’re holding ourselves accountable internally.”