ATLANTA — Aperture Hotels is filling a void between the larger and smaller third-party management groups in the hotel industry.
Atlanta-based Aperture formerly operated as Banyan Tree Management and managed the hotel portfolio of Banyan Investment Group. Aperture has expanded its scope and will provide hotel management services to other hotel owners and hopes to grow its third-party management portfolio.
Charles Oswald, president and CEO of Aperture, said during a video interview with Hotel News Now at the 2023 Hunter Hotel Investment Conference that the company is targeting lifestyle, premium select-service and compact full-service hotels.
Now was the right time to take this step, Oswald said, as Banyan Investment Group "had matured."
Executives at both the investment company and management company realized that being on their own and not exclusively confined to one another would result in more opportunities for growth, he said.
Aperture operates 15 hotels and resorts with more than 2,000 rooms. The portfolio has branded and independent hotels and resorts in urban, suburban and leisure destination markets across the U.S.
When asked if Aperture has an appetite to merge with or acquire other third-party management companies, Oswald said "absolutely."
"Management company M&A is a possibility for us. We would invite that opportunity, and hopefully we could identify somebody that is culturally a good fit, a group that has good business acumen and someone who maybe has a complementary portfolio that could work with ours," he said.
Oswald said the hotel management company landscape has changed within the past 10 years when it comes to scale.
"There was only one company [with] over 200 hotels 10 years ago," he added.
Markets To Target
Oswald said there's still some substantial upside in investing in the "Smile" states. For owners who like to "buy low and sell high," he said there's opportunities in the Midwest, Northeast and West Coast "if you believe in the long-term prospects and recovery in those locations."
For more from HNN's conversation with Charles Oswald, watch the video above.