Partners Group Acquires Minority Stake in Hotel Developer Trinity Investments

Looks like some Swiss investors are looking to come down from the European mountains to spend some time at beachfront resorts. 

Switzerland-based private equities firm Partners Group is set to acquire a minority stake in Trinity Investments, a Honolulu-based, hospitality-focused real estate investor, the firm announced Monday.

Although details of the sale weren’t disclosed, Partners Group is initially investing $500 million for acquisitions with Trinity, with the option to infuse more capital into the company’s North American, European and “special situations” platforms as part of the deal. 

“We see an abundance of opportunities to deploy our sophisticated platform for hotel real estate, repositioning, operation and asset management into new hotel assets and credit investments both in North America and abroad,” Sean Hehir, Trinity’s managing partner, president and CEO, said in a statement.

Trinity, which manages a portfolio of $5.8 billion, made headlines in early 2023 for spending $835 million on the sprawling Diplomat Beach Resort in Hollywood, Fla., the largest hotel deal since the COVID-19 pandemic began. The 1,000-key resort is one of the largest in Florida, second only to the Fontainebleau in Miami Beach.

Previous owner Brookfield Property began marketing the beachfront Diplomat resort in 2019 and had negotiated a series of potential deals with resort mogul Jeffrey Soffer, who also owns the Fontainebleau, before eventually selling to Trinity a few years later. 

Partners and Trinity are hardly strangers. Their relationship began in 2022 as a joint venture to acquire the Four Seasons Resort Dallas at Las Colinas, which it later rebranded as a Ritz-Carlton property, for an undisclosed sum. The joint venture also announced earlier this month that it had purchased the over 400-key Scottsdale Plaza Resort & Villas in Scottsdale, Ariz., also for an undisclosed price. 

“We are investing in real estate operating companies in order to gain vertical depth in sectors and geographies where we have strong thematic conviction. Trinity has nearly three decades of experience in the hotel real estate asset class, and that depth of knowledge shines through,” Jason Longo, senior investment leader for Partners Group, said in a statement.

Nick Trombola can be reached at ntrombola@commercialobserver.com.