HARVEY, Louisiana—The BN Group does a little bit of everything from start to finish. Its construction company builds hotels, and then its hospitality arm owns and operates the hotels it built.
Having its own construction company, Hi-Tech Commercial Contractors, has its advantages, said Sonya Nguyen, COO and CFO for the BN Group.
“We have controls in place,” she said. “We can push for it to get completed sooner. Prior to building our own hotels, we worked with contractors. There were always delays.”
Along with its own commercial construction company and hotel ownership and management functions, BN Group also has the New Orleans & Gulf Coast Regional Center, a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services-approved EB5 regional center.
“NOGC is another type of funding resource for our future developments, though we do not rely on these funds, as we have our dedicated investor pool and local banking financing,” she said.
A company’s beginning
BN Group Chairman and CEO Bui Nguyen entered the hotel industry after years in the fishing industry, Sonya Nguyen said. While traveling for work, he stopped over in the New Orleans area often on trips to his company’s fishing vessels. He stayed at the Quality Inn New Orleans West Bank on each trip.
During one of his stays, he stopped by the hotel’s front desk and asked the associate if the owner would like to sell the hotel and left his phone number, she said. The next day, the owner called to express interest in Bui Nguyen’s proposal.
“A month later, he closed on his first hotel,” Sonya Nguyen said.
That hotel became a Days Inn, she said, and then Bui Nguyen began to purchase other hotels in the area. In 2005, he built his first hotel, a La Quinta Inn & Suites about an hour and a half from New Orleans. He formed the BN Group, and the company has since added one or two new builds to the company portfolio each year.
BN now has 10 properties, including La Quinta, Choice Hotels International, Marriott International, Hilton Worldwide Holdings, and Best Western Hotels & Resorts brands. The company has three hotels under construction with another four in the pipeline.
Working past the challenges
The BN Groups’ properties performed well in the past year, Sonya Nguyen said, but most of the properties are located in the New Orleans and Houma areas of Louisiana and are exposed to the issues in that region.
“It’s an area where the oil industry is heavy,” she said. “The past couple of months, we have been affected by the oil industry. We’re maintaining. Our sales team and revenue management team and operations teams are working hard to retain our customers and our groups. They’re working hard to seek our guests.”
The New Orleans market has been strong, she said, and the company is trying to capitalize on this for its West Bank properties.
Plans for the future
Within the next five years, the BN Group intends to have about 20 hotels in its portfolio, Bui Nguyen said. The company looks to continue working with Hilton and Marriott and possibly expand to hotels flagged under InterContinental Hotel Group brands.
“Now we’ve got all the land and we’re ready to develop,” he said.
The company is interested to see what happens in the pending Marriott acquisition of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Sonya Nguyen said. Though it doesn’t have sights on any particular brand, she said, they are interested in bringing a Starwood property into the portfolio.
“We will see what the best fit is for the area,” she said. “We have reached out to Starwood. It would be great when the Marriott and Starwood brands merge.”