First Hospitality launches First Investors
CHICAGO, IL – First Hospitality introduces First Investors, its dedicated hotel real estate investment platform, which has powered the company's lodging acquisitions and development for more than four decades and is now open to qualified outside investors. Concurrently, the firm also unveils First Investors GP Fund, which expects to supply sponsor capital for a targeted $400 million in U.S. hotel investment over the next 12 to 36 months.
The platform is led by Chief Executive Officer David Duncan and governed by a seasoned ownership group: Sam Schwartz, Executive Chairman; Stephen Schwartz, founder and Chairman Emeritus. Collectively, the three executives have led more than $10 billion in hospitality transactions across value-add, ground-up, and adaptive-reuse strategies.
Since 1985, First Investors and its affiliates have completed 45 hotel transactions, generating a 3.9x multiple of invested capital with an IRR over 20% on realized exits and currently own significant joint-venture positions in 18 hotels totaling 3,100 keys. Current representative investments include the Hiltons at McCormick Place (Chicago, IL), Hotel LeVeque, Autograph Collection (Columbus, OH), Tempo by Hilton Louisville Downtown NuLu (Louisville, KY), and the newly opened Hotel Ardent, a Tapestry Collection (Dayton, OH).
'First Investors benefits from direct alignment with our operating platform, providing early visibility into local market dynamics and operational trends well before they appear in public data,' said David Duncan, CEO of First Investors. 'This vertical integration provides a differentiated advantage for our investors, particularly in today's market environment, where dislocation is creating some very unique investment opportunities.'
First Investors will focus on deploying the GP Fund alongside a select group of existing capital partners and other sophisticated investors into a portfolio of six to ten hotels, targeting 150 – 350-key, premium-branded or independent lifestyle assets located in growth markets with multiple demand generators.
The firm will apply its proven value-creation playbook, which includes:
Proprietary Sourcing – Draw on over four decades of experience, deep industry relationships, and a national footprint to identify off-market and strategically positioned opportunities where investment basis supports attractive risk-adjusted returns.
Disciplined Capital Deployment – Maintain a selective, fundamentals-driven approach, aligning each investment with an appropriate capital structure that supports both near-term execution and long-term value creation.
Integrated Value Creation – Utilize First Hospitality's operational platform to execute targeted capital improvements and operational enhancements, accelerating repositioning efforts and driving sustained cash flow and value growth.
What sets First Investors apart is the fusion of institutional-grade underwriting and disciplined execution, driven by real-time insights from First Hospitality's award-winning management platform. This is paired with an entrepreneurial approach and a flexible capital structure, that has allowed First Investors to deliver strong, cycle-resilient results for its partners.
'Our GP Fund is all about alignment – approximately 20 percent of the fund will be our own capital, giving the firm and its senior leaders substantial skin in every transaction,' said Sam Schwartz, Executive Chairman of First Investors.
Stephen Schwartz, Chairman Emeritus of First Investors, added: 'Bringing this platform to outside investors is the natural evolution of work we've been doing privately for 40 years through five lodging cycles.'
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