A-Rod Leads $650M Fund Investing In Hotels

Baseball player-turned-businessman Alex Rodriguez will be a lead investor in a $650M real estate fund that seeks primarily to pick up hotel assets. 

Rodriguez and his partner, Adi Chugh, founder of New York-based private equity advisory firm Maverick Commercial Properties, have completed a platform investment within the Hospitality Opportunity Fund run by CGI Merchant Group, a Miami-based investment management firm.

An announcement said the fund would focus on opportunistic hospitality acquisitions, plus select ground-up developments, in high-growth markets throughout North America and the Caribbean. The fund hopes to create a "first-of-its-kind hospitality portfolio dedicated to providing authentic, socially, and environmentally conscious experiences to conscious travelers."

“We believe we can acquire assets that are strategically positioned to be in the top-performing percentile once restrictions are eased,” Rodriguez told The Wall Street Journal.

The fund intends to pick up 20 properties over three years and put them all under Hilton's brand umbrella. It already bought one property, the Gabriel Hotel in downtown Miami. That asset is part of the 67-story Marquis Residences and is branded as part of the Curio Collection by Hilton. 

A-Rod Corp. and Maverick CP teamed up earlier this year with the aim of building a large commercial real estate platform across asset classes.

As part of the new agreement with CGI Merchant Group, which was founded in 2006, "Rodriguez and Chugh will support CGI’s investment strategies, expanding the firm’s debt capital markets capabilities, and assisting in the acquisition of upcoming trophy investments for the H-Fund," the announcement said. "In this new venture with CGI, Rodriguez and Chugh will also take an active role in advancing the firm’s co-investment platform and expanding its flexible and multi-use office portfolio."

Rodriguez's Monument Capital Management has so far bought $800M of real estate and is just one of many companies that fall under Rodriguez’s A-Rod Corp. Rodriguez's fiancee, Jennifer Lopez, has spoken of the couple's aim to run multiple billion-dollar-plus businesses.