Blackstone Group and Starwood Capital Group have formed a 50/50 joint venture to buy hotel company Extended Stay America for about $6B in an all-cash deal.

The two investment giants had originally purchased equity stakes in Extended Stay America in April — combined, the two firms bought 13.4% of the company in those early days of the coronavirus pandemic.

The JV will now pay each current shareholder in Extended Stay America $19.50 per share, which represents a 15.1% premium over the price of the stock on March 12. Until the deal is closed, Extended Stay doesn't expect to pay any further dividends, except for a $0.09 per share distribution that has already been announced.

“Extended Stay has demonstrated resilience over the past year despite persistent challenges due to government lockdowns and travel restrictions,” Starwood Capital CEO Barry Sternlicht said in a statement. “We are excited about the company’s growth opportunity as restrictions ease.”

Like most hoteliers, Extended Stay has been impacted by the pandemic. The company reported in February that its revenue per available room for the full year 2020 decreased 15% compared with 2019 to $42.91, driven by an 11.6% drop in average daily rate and a 300-basis point decline in occupancy to 73.8%.

Even so, Extended Stay did better by some metrics than the U.S. hotel industry as a whole in 2020, which hotel data specialist STR called "the worst year on record for U.S. hotels."

Average occupancy for the industry in 2020 was 44%, a drop of 33.3 percentage points compared with 2019, while ADR was down 21.3% for the year. RevPAR for the U.S. hotel industry was down 47.5% to $45.48.

Extended Stay is the largest hotel REIT in North America by unit and room count, with 563 hotels totaling over 62,700 rooms, focusing on guests who stay for weeks or longer. Roughly two-thirds of its properties are in the largest 25 U.S. metro markets. The company also franchises an additional 86 hotels, and as of the end of 2020, it had four hotels under construction.